How to get ants out of an apartment at home

In the world there are several thousand species of antsbut only some of them prefer to settle in apartments where they are provided with all the conditions for a comfortable existence: it is warm and satisfying. That's just the owners usually do not like it - they are persistently looking for ways and means, how to get rid of ants in the apartment so that they do not crawl into groceries and spoil things.

What ants settle in apartments

Most often settled in residential premises redheads or orange ants that do not live in nature, but have adapted to dwell only in human housing. They were also mistakenly called pharaonic due to the fact that in the 19th century they were first discovered in Egypt. In fact, these insects lived in large numbers in India, whence aboard ships in the 18-19 centuries. were brought to Europe, where they multiplied at home in incredible quantities, settling closer to heat and food.

Sometimes in apartments you can find black antsHowever, they mainly live in nature: in the forest or in the garden. They arrange colonies in drawers closer to the cereals, along the baseboards, near the sink or in the bathroom between the tiles.

Interesting!

The color of ants is affected not only by their species characteristics, but also by nutrition: the color of the body of redheads can turn pale and turn out yellow ants, black individuals are also able to slightly lose their color and become brown.

Another color that occurs infrequently is transparent or white ants, they are found in packaged bread, sweets, in medicine boxes. In central Russia, insects of white color can only be in the "infant" age, on the first day of life. Although in the Central Asian countries there are white termites.

The answer to the question why these pests appear is quite simple: after all, they need to eat and live, preferably in warmth and comfort. But where they come from and how the ants get into the apartment can be explained as follows:

• in apartment buildings - from cellars or from neighbors;
• through ventilation vents or crevices in the floor or walls;
• accidentally entered on clothes or shoes.

The red aliens, seemingly harmless, may well destroy or spoil the products in the apartment, causing a lot of inconvenience to the owners even get into bed. They get into garbage bags, and then run to feast on sweet sugar on the dining table, spreading harmful bacteria on their paws. Therefore, any owner will try to get rid of domestic ants as soon as possible.

Different ways to deal with ants

If ants are wound up in an apartment, then you can fight them with various methods:

• Chemical agents in the form of aerosols containing poisonous insecticides - are quick-acting and quite effective, but they act directly only on working individuals, and uterussitting in the nest and producing offspring will quickly restore the number of ant colony in the apartment. Most popular: spray Raptor, Reid, Get, Dichlorvos and etc.Their disadvantage is a strong concentration of poison, dangerous for pets and small children.
• Insecticides in the form of gels or baits: Raptor, Fas, Globol, A great warrior, Clean house and others. Gels are applied with small strokes in the habitats of apartment ants. Such a remedy for ants in an apartment works as follows: with the help of a smell it lures pests, then workers eat part of the poison, and transfer the other to the anthill on its paws, where all inhabitants and the ant uterus are poisoned. The disadvantage of this method is the longer validity period (about 2-4 weeks).
• One of the most inexpensive means by which ants can be taken out of an apartment is insecticides in the form of powders or pencils: Masha, Clean house, Delicia, Fas Double. They are applied or scattered along the ant paths from which running insects eat poison or carry away into the nest. Such drugs are less toxic, but require several treatments and last for 1-2 months.
• Shopping traps with poison are similar in effect to gels, only they are closed and therefore inaccessible to animals, and house ants crawl into them through the hole and are poisoned. These include: Raptor, Thunder, Kombat and etc.
• The most effective method to get rid of these insects forever is to call the pest control service, which gives a 100% guarantee of the extermination of ants in the apartment, but this method is expensive and requires preparation of the premises and the absence of hosts for the duration of the treatment.
• Using an ultrasonic repeller. Opinions about the effectiveness of the device are mixed.

On a note!

In an apartment building, fighting ants will be more effective by agreeing with neighbors who also suffer from pests. And then do a chemical treatment of several apartments and basements at once.

Folk methods of struggle

Many apartment owners who have small children or pets prefer fight ants folk remedieswithout using toxic substances. There are many such methods, they are quite effective and will allow you to get rid of pests using various available substances:

• The most effective way to kill the ant population is boric acid use, which is completely harmless to people and animals living in the apartment. For the preparation of poison: in a mixture of 1 tsp. boric acid and 1 tbsp. water add 1 tsp. sugar or jam for bait. After thoroughly stirring the solution, it is applied along the skirting boards and ant paths, you can pour a little into the saucers and put it near the nest. Another method involves mixing boric acid and boiled egg white, which are molded into small balls and laid out along the routes of movement of insects in the room. Gradually, the ants will eat the poison and transfer its particles to their colony, whose inhabitants will also be poisoned and die a few days later.
• Substances such as borax or yeast: they are mixed with sugar or minced meat. After eating such baits, insects die within a few days.
• To get rid of ants in the kitchen, it is always necessary to remove all the remnants of the products, and hide the most attractive food for them in sweets in closed containers.
• To scare away red aliens, various strongly smelling herbs and products are used: wormwood, parsley, garlic, red pepper.
• Processing the places of accumulation of small ants and their paths with solutions of vinegar or ammonia, which will help by means of a pungent odor to scare away the ants;
  

  Important!

  Various ways to repel ants can help in a situation when ants just appeared in the apartment before they even had time to build nests, otherwise such methods will not be effective.

• If the nests of ants are found, then you can destroy them yourself mechanically, pouring boiling water or treating this place with sharply smelling substances: turpentine, kerosene, etc. The most important thing is to destroy the ant uterus so that the colony cannot recover.

Prevention of the appearance of ants in the apartment

In order for the ants to not start in the apartment, it is necessary to exclude the reasons for their appearance, i.e. do not provide them with food that they can find within the apartment. To do this, in all living rooms, in the kitchen, bathroom or toilet, you must:

• keep the room clean;
• close all cracks in window openings, ventilation holes, in the floor and walls;
• always clean food in inaccessible places, wipe the kitchen table and cabinets;
• after each meal, wash the dishes and remove crumbs and leftovers;
• Take out garbage daily, especially food waste.

The best way to fight harmful insects is to prevent them from entering your apartment, observing cleanliness and scaring them off by all known methods.