Domestic ants are undesirable and very specific guests in any house and apartment. But it is impossible to call them insects too difficult to remove: knowing the peculiarities of their biology and being ready to use really effective modern means, you can get rid of them quickly enough. Today, the fight against domestic ants is a well-established process that, with the right approach, takes one day of time from strength and gives a reliable result.
In order to properly deal with ants in an apartment, you need a little: an effective means that destroys insects, its correct use, and interaction with the nearest neighbors. If at least one of these three “whales” does not exist, the fight against ants in the apartment will either not give a result at all, or the effect of the efforts will be temporary.
Therefore, first, let's outline the basic rules for the effective breeding of domestic ants.
General rules for breeding ants
The main feature of ants is their coloniality. One colony necessarily has a nest in which the queen is located. Near the uterus there are eggs and pupae of ants, food supplies are also collected here.If you find such a nest and destroy it, all the worker ants, no matter how many there are, will simply die out in a week or two. If the nest lives, you can destroy the worker ants running in search of food for an arbitrarily long time - their shift will constantly grow in the nest.
Therefore, the fight against ants consists precisely in the destruction of their nest. And for this, by the way, it is not at all necessary to find it: today's methods of dealing with domestic ants make it possible to eliminate it in a kind of remote mode.
Further, in a large apartment building, there are almost certainly several dozen nests of ants. Insects from one nest can scour several apartments on several floors in search of food at once, and pests from different colonies can be present in one dwelling. That is why, before dealing with domestic ants, it is necessary:
- coordinate their work with neighbors, and in the ideal case, carry out joint processing of apartments
- take into account that ants can temporarily leave the housing in which they are poisoned, and then enter it again
- when using insecticides, strictly follow the instructions and treat the room as diligently as possible: it’s worth being lazy for five minutes here, and after a couple of weeks the process will have to be repeated
- pay attention to the prevention of ants entering the room.
So, today you can fight ants in several ways, differently effective and suitable for different conditions.
Ways to deal with domestic ants
All the most effective and popular ways to deal with domestic ants are divided into:
- Use of insecticidal gels
- Application of insect sprays
- I poison ants with dust and crayons
- Call for special pest control teams
- Mechanical destruction of the nest and individual worker ants
- The use of folk remedies.
Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. Fighting domestic ants in an apartment or private house using any of them can be quite effective with the right approach.
Ant Control Aerosols
Insecticide sprays are very effective means of dealing with red ants, if you need to remove insects here and now, without stretching this pleasure for an indefinite period. Their main advantage is the ability to get ants in those places where a person cannot reach with his hand. They spread to the most secluded corners with air and insects cannot avoid the penetration of poison into the body.
Fighting ants in the house with aerosols requires preparation and at least one day of work on processing the premises itself. The sequence of application of aerosols in general looks like this:
- All people and pets are removed from the premises, aquariums and terrariums are covered with coverslips and compressors are turned off in them.
- Furniture is moved away from the walls, hanging carpets are removed, windows and doors are closed.
- The maximum number of surfaces is sprayed with an aerosol. You need to be prepared that you will have to spend at least three ordinary cylinders (for example, Raptor or Kombat) on a one-room apartment.
- The apartment is closed and left for a few hours.
- After settling in the room, general wet cleaning is carried out. Surfaces that pets and children cannot reach - walls behind furniture, the inner walls of bedside tables - are not wiped so that the drug remains on them as long as possible.
The most popular ant aerosols today are DEET, Kombat, Raptor, Get, Raid, Karbofos, Microfos.
You can successfully fight red ants with the help of almost any aerosols with insecticidal filling. It is only important to avoid obsolete Dichlorvos and similar drugs that have increased toxicity to warm-blooded animals.
Review
“For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has always suffered with ants in the house. She only poisoned them with all sorts of smelly Dichlorvos. They returned a month later. My husband and I once bought three cylinders of Combat, sprayed the house from head to toe, washed the carpets, and for a year now the insects have not returned.
Marina, Belyaevka
It should be remembered that ant aerosols can misfire. This is due to the fact that their nest itself is located outside the apartment - in the front door, in a neighbor's apartment, on a dryer - and only working individuals are killed with an aerosol. Therefore, when deciding how to deal with ants in the house for sure, one should prefer drugs whose action is somewhat extended in time, but which, in any case, will reach the very heart of the insect colony.
insecticidal gels
The principle of action of insecticidal gels is different from that of aerosols: gels attract ants as a food source. Insects actively eat them themselves, and then drag them to the nest to feed the queen and larvae. Moreover, the insecticidal preparation itself as part of such a gel does not act immediately, allowing the doomed ant to poison several more of its fellows.
Of course, in one day the fight against ants in the apartment with the help of gels will not give a visible result, but in a few weeks with their help you can even destroy the ants that live with your neighbors.
It is interesting
Ants have a very developed phenomenon of trophollaxis - the transfer of liquid semi-digested food for the exchange of information and identification of fellows. Including due to such communication, poisonous bait is transmitted to domestic ants.
Gels compare favorably with powders (dusts) in that they can be applied to vertical surfaces. When the fight against house ants is successfully completed, the remains of the gel can be wiped off with a rag, and there will be no greasy stains in their place.
When choosing an ant gel, you should look at its composition. If it contains Permethrin, Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin, Diazinon, it will really be effective in the fight against domestic ants. At the same time, such gels will be completely safe for animals and people: they can lead to allergies only when a large amount is eaten, but manufacturers add natural bitterness to all products. Insects do not feel them, and a child or pet will immediately begin to spit from just one drop of the product.
The most popular gels today are Globol, Brownie, Raptor and Sturm gel-paste.
Powders and pencils as the most famous means of fighting ants
The well-known dusts and chalk Mashenka, together with its Chinese slaughter counterparts, are the most popular means in our country for combating domestic red ants, as well as cockroaches. Sometimes they are even included in the list of folk remedies, despite the fact that their composition is no less synthetic than that of aerosols.
On a note
Dust and insecticidal powder are one and the same. These funds are called powders in the common people.
Measures to combat domestic ants using these tools are quite simple. Powders simply crumble where ants are most often found, stripes are drawn with crayons in the same place. Even if the ant runs along such a barrier line, it will have crumbs on its paws, which it will certainly want to remove with its jaws and swallow in a calm environment.
The main advantage of the funds of this group is the availability and low cost. With one Mashenka's pencil, you can process the entire apartment, and all the pleasure will cost only 10-15 rubles.
Dusts and crayons are very good as preventive measures: if the apartment is clean, but there is a risk of ants appearing in it, the funds should be applied in places where insects can enter the room.
Of the powders from ants, Pyrethrum, Ant Killer, Fas, Chisty Dom are very famous, and from pencils - Masha and Chinese products that are unnamed for the Russian user.
Ant traps
These means against ants in the apartment are rather ineffective: in any case, only working individuals fall into the traps, which almost does not affect the life of the colony itself. However, if you simultaneously fight ants at home with the help of other, more effective drugs, then insecticidal traps can be used as an aid.
Velcro traps are also effective against ants. If you install one such adhesive tape in the path of insects, several hundred pests can stick to it per day.
It is most effective to use traps if ants come to visit from neighbors and the ways of their penetration into the house are known. One bait installed on the trail will reliably protect the premises from these insects. It is only important to replace it with a new one from time to time.
Folk remedies for ants
Folk remedies for fighting ants in an apartment are no less diverse than industrial insecticides. At the same time, among them there are repellent drugs, and means for the destruction of insects.
The first include sunflower oil, bay leaf, garlic, kerosene, turpentine, denatured alcohol. In order to effectively deal with indoor ants, these means need to rub the places where insects move, and lay the bay leaf near the products to which they need to prevent their access.
Natural poisons for domestic ants are boric acid and borax, simple and brewer's yeast. There are many recipes for the preparation of effective baits based on these substances, which can be used to fight house ants no less effectively than using synthetic insecticidal agents.
Call of special teams
However, no matter how sensitive the ants are to various insecticides, the fight against them will be the simplest and most reliable if you entrust it to professional exterminators. Private brigades and sanitation services exterminate the ants quickly and effectively, and then guarantee that the house will be free of insects for a certain period of time.
This method has only one drawback - the relative high cost. Fighting small domestic ants on your own, even using the most modern means, is cheaper than calling in special teams.
It is very important in the fight against ants in the house is the prevention of their entry into the room. It doesn’t matter if it’s an apartment, a private house or a dacha - if you initially protect the room from the penetration of insects, then you won’t have to use special means to destroy them in the future.
For such prevention, it is necessary to initially lay out repellent preparations in places where insects penetrate and use simple and cheap traps. But maintaining cleanliness in the house to protect it from ants is less important than the same measures from cockroaches: ants can constantly patrol even the cleanest rooms in search of food. Therefore, their prevention requires special measures.
Useful video: how to get rid of domestic ants in the apartment
Another non-standard way to deal with ants in the house
Hello! At my house, of course, there are no ants yet, but at my neighbor, she lives in a private house, there are a lot of insects in the garden ... She was advised tobacco dust to fight them. It seems that it’s not bad yet, they are slowly running away))
Tried different methods and means. Called "specialists" and still appear after a while again.The last time the destruction of the nest with the queens helped, they twisted it in an economic glove, dragged all the queens there. Disappeared after destruction. Two weeks flight is normal. We are waiting for guests.
And what should I choose if there are pets in the house and ants all the time in their bowls? ((
Good afternoon ant victims. He himself became a victim of pests. More than two years unsuccessfully struggled with these small harmful villains. All the means available on the Internet did not allow to get rid of them completely, but made it possible to partially control their numbers. The solution to the problem came quite unexpectedly. In the spring, mosquitoes crawled out of the basement through the ventilation shafts. I had to turn on the fumigators in the apartment. One morning on the windowsill with the fumigator running, I noticed a bunch of ants writhing in agony. The solution was born immediately. With the windows closed on weekends, we turn on the fumigators in all rooms, pick up all the living creatures, including cats, dogs and fish, and go to the dacha. And lo and behold, the red bandits die, because the repellent used in the fumigator, apparently, has the same effect on all cold-blooded when breathing. The procedure must be repeated several times. So I got rid of the ants. I wish you all good luck.
Andrey, hello! Thanks for the recommendation. Which fumigator helped, please specify.
Domestic ants will disappear forever, for this you need to mix a tablespoon of borax (used for soldering) and two tablespoons of unsalted minced meat. Spread out in places where ants appear. Do not be alarmed, the first days the insects will climb to eat in a crowd, a ribbon of them may appear. It is they who carry food to the nest, feed the uterus and children.In a few days the whole house will forget about them. Do not use pesticides in apartments, nests are located inside building structures and always remain alive. The borax method has been tested (not boric acid, but borax!)
I consulted with a company providing pest control services (consultations were free). They said that it is necessary to find a nest and destroy it by filling it with boiling water. But finding this nest is not so easy, since it is most likely located somewhere in a very inaccessible place for humans.
Good afternoon, comrades in misfortune! I also encountered these crazy ants, but I decided not to look for any nests myself, but called a special service. At first I consulted with them, and then I decided that let them help me, because I am generally afraid of all these insects.
At the same time, as a student, I did not spend a lot of money, but now I live normally, knowing that the ants will not eat me somehow. In general, in this case, I recommend that you contact special services in order to solve this problem once and for all.
Disinsection by specialists helps exactly for three months!