Ants - Friend or Foe?

Annually, with the arrival of warm weather, a lot of people living in houses and condos in Toronto have to fight against thousands of uninvited guests. There are two kinds of ants that most usually move into people's houses - sugar ants and carpenter ants. Whereas real Sugar Ants live in Australia, the small black Pharaoh and Pavement ants that you keep stepping on in your kitchen are usually called ‘sugar ants’ in the US and Canada because of their inexhaustible appetite for sweet foods. They would be seldom found living indoors.

Sugar ants are tinier than Carpenter ants, the other common ant species, who are sometimes even half an inch long. A common mistake is confusing the Carpenter ants with termites. However, termites eat wood and they are white, while Carpenter ants are black and they only use the wood for making homes for their colonies, they don't really eat it, just burrow into it. They usually live in old tree stumps or fence posts, but sometimes they try to find a cosy place inside of a human house. If there is anything attractive for these ants in your home, they will keep coming there, so in order to get rid of them, just take away they favourite things.

How to close the ant restaurant It's quite likely that the ants only come into the house to search for food. In that case, these easy cleaning routine steps, done for at least two weeks, may help. If not, there is always time for something more radical. The great place for ants is your kitchen sink area, as it provides them with food and water. So you have to keep this place clean and dry. Always try to wash the dishes so that they are not left dirty overnight, and make sure you wipe the sink dry, so that there is no food or drink offered for the ants. A great tip is also using bleach or white vinegar for wiping down all the kitchen surfaces every night. The floor should also be washed properly - you can use the vinegar or bleach for this too. Vinegar is a very environmentally-friendly but effective cleaning agent. And when you clean the sink, also pour a couple of drops of bleach or white vinegar down the pipes. This is also a really practical advice. Keep all groceries in air tight boxes. Take the rubbish bin out at least once a day, but if you manage to do it more often, it's better. If there are any cracks in the walls of your home that the ants can use as the entrance, seal them up. Expanding Foam is probably the easiest and fastest choice to achieve this (your local Hardware store will stock this). If they still find their way in after all your efforts, toss some bay leaves or cloves nearby and this should do the trick.

How to find the nest To prevent Carpenter ants from nesting near or within your home, the optimum thing to do is to get rid of rotten wood in your garden and damp places in your home. But it's likely the ants have already moved into your house, usually if you cannot find any nest outside but the ants are still in your house. So you will have to use your detective skills to find out where the nest is placed. Carpenter ants enjoy damp wood, so look for old trees or fire wood in your garden. Look around sweaty pipes, washing machines, dishwashers and any other damp spots. Remember that the damage caused by one ant colony (as there may be up to 3 or even 10 thousands ants in it) can be quite extensive and possibly dangerous, depending on its location within the house's wooden structure. Sawdust can give away the ant nest, as Carpenter simply love feeding on wood. Or at silent times you might hear a dry rustling sound, also detectable with stethoscopes. Even if you use the services of a professional exterminator to clean your home of these horrible creatures, if you don’t deal with the damp wooden areas around your property that attracts them, then for sure they will be back to visit you again next year. If you don't want the ants to come back, you will have to get used to keeping your kitchen perfectly spotless, or no bait will be of any help.

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