Ant prevention isn't too different from general insect prevention: the overall goal is to keep them on the OUTSIDE and prevent them from entering your home. If you take the following steps, ants should not be a major problem:

• Eliminate water sources, one of the ant’s life requirements. That means repairing leaking faucets, water heaters and other water sources inside the home.
• Eliminate food sources, including any sweet spills in the kitchen. Most tiny ants that enter your home are looking for sweets, whether it’s a spilled Coke that hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned up or an open bowl of fruit.
• Pet bowls can attract ants, so keep them clean! Fido’s bowl may LOOK clean but give it a quick wash with detergent before the next feeding.
• Seal any cracks and crevices on the outside of the home with silicone caulk, paying special attention to areas where utility pipes enter.
• Rake back mulch, pine straw or other landscape bedding at least 6 inches from the structure to create a "dry zone" that ants are likely to avoid.
• If you have fruit trees nearby, remove ripe fruit from the trees and off the ground around them.
• Store outdoor trash cans and dumpsters as far away from your home as possible and be sure they have tight-fitting lids.
• Thoroughly wash out trash cans and dumpsters with an ammonia solution when needed.
• The best way to prevent ants – call DA Exterminating! 800-650-PEST

As summer approaches, ants of all kinds become more active and may invade your kitchen in search of sweets and other goodies that they love. We’ve compiled some information here about ants that we hope you’ll find interesting. Watch our June 15 blog for a list of prevention tips to help keep them out of your home.

Ants are social insects that live in colonies which are usually located in the ground, but many enter buildings for shelter and food. Ants feed on practically every type of food, but those entering homes are looking for sweets and substances containing protein.

Inside of a typical ant colony you will find thousands of ants living together and performing their individual jobs like reproducing, construction, foraging for food or defending the nest from invaders. Inside the nest the queen or queens are responsible for the reproduction of the entire colony. Worker ants remove the eggs from the queen and tend to them until they are able to care for themselves.

Why should you care?
One of the interesting things about ants is that once they enter and find what they are looking for, they “tell” the rest of the colony and before long, you have an ant circus on your kitchen counter! So long as an appealing food source is present, more and more ants will eventually find their way into your home. Once inside, they are masters at finding other sources of sweets so they will quickly spread around your kitchen.

Ants may not threaten your home like termites, or be the same threat to you and your family as poisonous spiders, but they are a terrible nuisance that are not easily eradicated. Certain ants, like carpenter ants, do pose a problem to your home as they damage wood that they nest in. And of course, if you’ve ever happened onto a fire ant nest, you know the havoc they can cause with their stings.

What to do if you have an ant infestation.
Call DA Exterminating right away so we can stop the ants before they become a real problem. (After all, who wants Aunt Ethel to see ants on the counter when she visits!) Call 800-650-PEST!