How to attract ants to the apartment and how to expel them from there than to scare away lonely scouts and how to neutralize a whole colony. Lifehaker continues to fight insects in your house.
Ants are insects that definitely deserve attention: they are intellectual, live on almost the entire planet, communicate with the help of pheromones and divide inside their colonies into caste. They even devote books to them! But all this is absolutely not happy when insects appear in your kitchen.
Under what conditions will ants start in the house
If you found a lonely wandering ant in the house, it is early to worry. Perhaps he just got from the street on clothes or shoes. But it can be a sent scout who finds out how suitable for living is. And he will bring friends with him if he finds accessible food:
- Macaron pan on a stove or a leap bag of cereals in a box,
- Dirty dishes in the sink (insects, unlike your half, like it),
- Garbage in an open bag or bucket (in addition to ants, it will also attract cockroaches).
The sooner you start taking measures, the more likely it will be possible to exterminate insects before they create a nest in your apartment. And in this case, getting rid of ants will be much, much more difficult. Harmful arthropods will walk along skirting boards, along the walls and boxes with slender rows.
How to get rid of ants if they just appeared
If insects were seen in small quantities, there are enough preventive measures:
- If possible, destroy scouts by external mechanical impact. In short, just crush them.
- Wipe the possible ways to follow with a solution of vinegar or soap (a liter of water, a tablespoon of liquid soap, a pair of drops of citrus essential oil). For convenience, the mixture can be poured into a spray.
- Draw barriers. On the ant tracks, draw a continuous line of centimeter width using an intermedted activated coal or chalk, black pepper or turmeric. Vaseline or aromatic pouring is also suitable.
- Stress. Cross the ants all the entrances and outputs: check the ventilation, plinth and all the cracks. If there is no way to plaster and fill the whole house with silicone sealant, tape will be enough as a temporary measure.
How to get rid of ants if they have already settled down in your apartment
Aromatherapy
Ants communicate using pheromones: special smells need insects to mark delicious or harmful food, send danger signals and multiply. This is where we will play. Filling the apartment with pungent odors, we will inform you in the language of aromas who is the master. So, ants do not like smells:
- mint (fresh or dry beams can be hung around the house),
- garlic (grate the plinth and ventilation grate),
- Camphores,
- chamomiles (buy dry flowers in a pharmacy and sprinkle around the perimeter of the home),
- bay leaf (put a couple of leaves in boxes with cereal reserves),
- aromatic oils of cloves, lavender, lemon and orange.
If you conduct aromatherapy sessions regularly, other measures may not be required. If this did not help, then we continue to fight in other ways.
Traps
You can place them in places of probable follow of ants. Traps are made according to one principle: a fragrant bait is placed in the center, and the edges are processed so that insects cannot get out. Here are a pair of examples:
- Glue a cardboard or a sheet of paper around the perimeter with bilateral tape, and put the sweet in the middle.
- In a glass of water, dissolve a couple of spoons of jam.
- Lubricate the edges of the deep bowl with petroleum jelly, and crush the cookies inside.
The minus of the traps is that they destroy only working ants who are looking for food for the colony. However, the uterus and other insects will continue to live and produce new pests.
Folk remedies
The most effective way is to force working ants to transfer poisoned food to the heart of the colony. So young animals and the uterus will fall under the blow, which means that new individuals will cease to appear.
- Boric acid + yolk. Mix boiled egg yolk with honey or jam and 20 grams of boric acid. Roll up the balls from the mixture and put them where ants will be supposedly. Update the bait until the colony is completely destroyed.
- Boric acid + honey. Dissolve a teaspoon of honey and 10 grams of boric acid in several tablespoons of water (it can be taken in liquid form). Leave droplets of solution in suspicious places. Update as necessary.
- Drill + minced meat. Mix both components in an arbitrary proportion, roll into balls and put it in the apartment. Instead of a drill, you can use boric acid in dry or liquid form.
Chemical attack
The insecticide market is full of all kinds of means: crayons, traps, gels, pastes and sprays. Choose any remedy for ants, but when using, remember the precautions: follow the instructions, put on protective gloves, take care of children and animals from the poison.
If you are not confident in your abilities, contact specialists to destroy insects.
Do ants are worried about you? If so, then how do you fight with them? Share tips in the comments.