Ant Proofing Tips
Ants can be more than a mere annoyance. Some of them can be quite dangerous and would require a lot of effort to get rid of once they’ve established their colony in your home. The pain from being bitten by the species on the list can range from minor irritation to sharp, protracted agony.
To make matters worse, you don’t always catch an infestation in time. That’s why we’re here to provide some proofing tips to give you a fighting chance. As doctors often say, prevention is the best cure, so we’ll try to give you some ant pest prevention tips, so you can get ahead of the curve. Here’s how to prevent ants in your home.
Find all possible entry points and seal them
This is how any ant prevention should begin. Ants are small creatures so you can be sure they will use all sorts of cracks, crannies, breaks, breaches, gaps, and space-time rifts to enter your home.
At any rate, they’re exceptionally adept at breaking into places like a reverse version of Michael Scofield. Don’t make it too easy for them. Examine your living space and ensure you’ve sealed as many of the possible entry points as you can find. If you block the way for the scouts, then you won’t have an infestation on your hands.
Sprinkle cinnamon or peppermint oil
Ants have an extremely well-developed olfactory nerve. They use their sense of smell to navigate the world, communicate with each other, and create chemical (more precisely pheromonal) trails to indicate points of interest for their allies.
Thus, using an invasive scent like cinnamon or peppermint confuses them and even if they leave their nasty pathways, the others will find it difficult to follow.
Detailed domestic cleaning
This doesn’t seem like an ant pest-proofing tip, but it’s one of the best we can give you. Ants can’t find a reason to infest your home if there’s nothing to find. Even if some scouts make their way into your home, vigorous cleaning will destroy the pheromone trails they leave for their friends. This way other ants won’t follow and you’ll avoid having a full-blown invasion on your hands.
Pick up and throw away food scraps around your house
It’s a relatively bad idea to leave food scraps around. On one hand, it attracts all sorts of pests – roaches, rats, mice, ants, and more. On the other hand, you can count the fact that some of the pests will end up fighting each other for the prize. If you have rats, mice will probably stay away.
Roaches would stay away from mice. Ants don’t get scared that easily, so they will probably attack anything that’s in their way. So, you can let the pests fight, waiting so you can eliminate the victor, or you can try to avoid having pests altogether by breaking this (honestly harmful) habit.
Put food in plastic containers
This one is a natural continuation of the one above. Keeping your food in plastic, vacuum containers are far more hygienic than leaving it on a plate, for example. This way the scent of the food doesn’t spread and doesn’t indicate there’s something worth finding at your place.
Hire a professional pest control technician
Ant pest prevention doesn’t always help. Despite your best efforts, ants sometimes still appear. In case you already have an infestation on your hands, you can try to deal with it on your own, or you can call in the cavalry. The choice is yours, but keep in mind the earlier you call a professional pest control company, the earlier the problem will be dealt with.