Picture this, you are cooking dinner for your family and as you are prepping the ingredients you see a trail of tiny black ants in your kitchen marching around and coming from seemingly nowhere. These ants are the common ants that you will find inside and are known as odorous house ants. While there is no need to panic necessarily, the bad news is that you have an ant infestation in your home and you need to eliminate these pests before their population increases.
The good news about odorous ants in your kitchen is that they do not cause structural damage to your home by boring through wood. Instead, these ants are more interested in finding food and beverages more than anything else. However, if the ants in your kitchen are large and black then you are most likely dealing with carpenter ants. Carpenter ants behave much differently than odorous house ants so if you think you may have a carpenter ant infestation. Click here to learn more about carpenter ants!
Where Ants Live In Your House
You may think that ants live inside of your home but that is not actually the case. Ants create colonies around your home and will then send out scout ants to find water and food that they can bring back to the colony. So when you see just a singular ant you are actually laying eyes on one of those scouts. Once the scouting ant finds what it is looking for the scouting ants will then release a pheromone that alerts the colony to follow them.
Odorous house ants aren’t just found in your kitchen, however. These insects are also drawn to your bathroom, but the reality is they can be found anywhere in your home! These ants have the ability to climb walls and travel between multiple levels of your home, which allows them to forage and search for food all over your home. Odorous ants are also drawn to your basement because of the high levels of moisture that inherently exist. So if you see ants in your kitchen, chances are there are small ants crawling throughout your entire home.
Why There Are Ants In Your Kitchen
Odorous house ants aren’t just found in your kitchen, however. These insects are also drawn to your bathroom, but the reality is they can be found anywhere in your home! These ants have the ability to climb walls and travel between multiple levels of your home, which allows them to forage and search for food all over your home. Odorous ants are also drawn to your basement because of the high levels of moisture that inherently exist. So if you see ants in your kitchen, chances are there are small ants crawling throughout your entire home.
One source of food for ants in your kitchen that you may not realize is pet food. Your furry friend’s food bowl is the perfect source of nutrients for ants to thrive in your kitchen. Because of that is important to throw away any uneaten pet food or put it back into a sealed container at the end of the day in order to avoid drawing in ants. Making sure to frequently dump your pet’s water bowl can help prevent the ant colony from growing too. You’ll want to also take the time to clean the area around your pets food bowls since dogs and cats aren’t always the cleanest when it comes to eating. They drop plenty of of crumbs and water droplets while they and this is bound to attract more and more ants to your kitchen. Here is an example of containers you should be storing your pet’s food in!
When it comes to ants in your kitchen another element that attracts them is water. If you spill on your kitchen counter, have leaky pipes under your sink, have standing water, or a lot of water in your dishwasher that just sits there it can attract ants.
Another thing that you can do to avoid attracting ants is to always use a lid on your trashcan. When food is out of sight it is easy for it to be out of mind, however making sure that food stored in your cabinets and pantry is sealed tightly will help to avoid attracting pantry pests. The last thing you can do to help prevent pests in the kitchen is to keep an eye on accessible foods such as ripe fruit on your counter. Doing these things will help to stop a colony of ants before they have a chance to make your home their own.
Why You Are Struggling To Rid Your Home Of Ants
Getting rid of ants can be extremely difficult if you aren’t targeting them at the source. If you do not start at the nest you are only killing the ants that you can see visibly. However, ant colonies exist mostly outdoors rather than indoors. The ants that you are seeing are scouting for food and water to bring back to the colony and if you make your home less desirable to ants the colony isn’t going to be as attracted to your home.
Ants aren’t just hard to eliminate but they also are abundant. Colonies of odorous ants can grow into the thousands and spread throughout your entire property. When they aren’t inside of your home odorous ants will live in the soil under rocks, within piles of wood, and in potted plants. To make things even harder their ants move from place to place making it difficult to fully eradicate your ant problem without professional pest control.
How Sigma Pest Control Can Help Rid Your Home Of Ants
Our skilled technicians at Sigma Pest will analyze the source of your ant activity and treat the exterior of your home to create a protective barrier. The last thing you want is to spend days chasing down ants in your kitchen and throughout your home during the warmth of spring and summer, and our team is here to help! Contact us today for more information about our ant control packages, it’s our job to take care of these nuisance pests once and for all!