Why Are Ants in My House?
You wake up in the morning, crawl out of bed, and make your way into the kitchen. Coffee is the only thing on your mind, but you are met with pure horror when the lights flip on. Ants crawling out of every gap and crack infesting all of your food and, even worse, the coffee! You cannot help but scream, “why are ants in my house!”
Maybe your typical ant infestation is not that bad, but they are extraordinarily frustrating when they appear in the masses. Ants can somehow sneak into the most natural areas of the house and spread like wildfire without removal and ongoing treatment. Getting control of invasive ants requires understanding why they are trying to get into your home in the first place.
Master Scavengers
Firstly, understand that the individual ant in your home is not looking out for itself but for the entire colony. Ants are not scouring your home for their greedy intent but to gather resources for the colony. The colony will stop growing and eventually cease to exist if the workers do not scavenge and provide for their population. Ants are one of the best scavengers on the planet after developing this intricate skill and process over the many years of their evolution.
Harvesting Food
Like you, ants need a plentiful amount of food to ensure that the entire colony can eat and sustain life. Unfortunately, your home provides what could be a lifetime’s worth of food to support a colony. So, if you keep thinking, “why are ants in my house?” then it is recommended to look at where they are explicitly infesting.
The kitchen is the most common area for ants to infest because this is where food is stored, prepped, and cooked! Typically, ants will find their way into food storage areas, like pantries, and find unsealed containers or boxes of food. Then they will create a pheromone trail and send the rest of the workers to harvest the designated food source.
The biggest challenge homeowners face when combatting ants in their food storage areas is the ant’s size. Since they are tiny, ants can slip right through a box that is just barely open and start contaminating food.
Ants Need Water
Everyone who owns a home knows that excess water can be detrimental, as unique of a resource as it is. When water leaks, spills, and drips accumulate around the house, there will surely be water damage and, more than likely, ants. Ants need water to live, albeit not as much as humans. Still, any available water might attract a colony to the area.
Additionally, some ant species, like Carpenter Ants and Moisture Ants, are particularly attracted to excessive moisture. Identifying a specific ant species around your home may indicate other issues you must address. What often starts as small innocent water drips build to extreme and expensive water damage. Fortunately, most ants can get their water directly from the food sources they scavenge.
Familiar Places to Find Ants In My House
- Kitchens- If you find ants anywhere in the house, they will most likely be in the kitchen. Ants will infest a kitchen even if it means they forage the microscopic crumbs on the ground.
- Pantries- Depending on your home’s layout, your pantry and kitchen may connect. Regardless, the pantry is one of the ants’ most frequently visited places for obvious reasons!
- Laundry Rooms- A laundry room may not store food, but there are usually a few areas to enter the home.
- Bathrooms- Bathrooms make the list because ants like to travel up through plumbing lines or wall voids to get inside. The bathroom has gaps, cracks, and plumbing lines for ants to enter.
- Garages- The garage is one of the easiest ways for ants to find their way into the home. Most garages are easily accessible for many household pests to slip in and start finding new ways inside.
How Ants Sneak In My House
There are various ways an ant might find their way inside the home, especially if the home is older and starting to settle. Whether the house is new or old, it does not matter to the ant, but older homes tend to be easier to gain entry. As homes age and go through the various Oregon seasons, they tend to settle and reveal more entryways.
It only takes the tiniest gap or cracks for an ant to slip through and penetrate the wall voids. More often than not, ants will nest inside wall voids since they provide adequate shelter from predators and the elements. Nesting inside wall voids also makes snagging food from your home easier since their colony is closer to resources.
Ant control can be pretty tricky, too, when they get a chance to set up their colonies inside the wall voids. The best way to remove ants for good is to directly treat the colony, which is near impossible inside wall voids.
Preventing Ants From Getting In My House
Yard Work Controls Ants
The best ant control starts on the outside and works its way in since that is where most ants gain access. Frequent yard maintenance will help prevent or slow ant activity by removing hiding and access spots. In addition, trimming foliage will stop ants and other pests from gaining access to the home since trees can act as a bridge.
Weekly Cleaning Keeps Ants Away From My House
Keeping up with your home’s cleanliness will disincentivize ants from wanting to infest. In addition, if your home does not openly show any potential food sources, then ants will likely bypass and look elsewhere.
Hire Prime Pest Solutions Professional Ant Control Service
The best way to prevent ants is by bringing in ant control experts who know how to treat your home!
Get The Ant Control Experts
Prime Pest Solutions is the ant control expert you need to stay ant-free all year long! Our ant prevention methods start by identifying ant species and tracking the colony’s location. Next, we will use different control techniques to remove the ant colony and build barriers preventing future infestations.
The longer one waits to get rid of ants, the harder it will be to see them disappear entirely. So, send the ants packing today by contacting us and getting your first service on the books!
