Indoor ants are uninvited guests in any home. Their presence is undesirable and dangerous. Where they come from, where they live, what they eat, what danger their presence in the house carries - questions that interest those who noticed uninvited guests in their home.

general information

Ants enter houses with the help of wings, which appear in future queens once a year to form new nests.

The domestic ant is not adapted to live on the street. A person's dwelling has a lot of food, warmth, comfortable conditions for life and reproduction. For ants, the main requirements for a habitat are: food availability, moisture and warmth.

In an apartment building, they can come from neighbors, move out of the garbage chute, the basement, located on the ground floor of catering establishments.

Home ant

Scout ants enter the premises to find out the conditions. If there is food, they bring it to the nest, which becomes a signal to move into this room and arrange a new den.

Attention! Pieces and crumbs left on the table or on the floor, food for pets and aquarium fish are food that can feed entire colonies of insects. An open bin is a storehouse of food.

Where there is food, insect reproduction occurs rapidly and, if you do not start fighting pests immediately, the fight against them can drag on for a long time.

They fill the entire space, penetrate food, contaminating and infecting them with infections.

Red, yellow, black ants are considered the most common small domestic pests. Their favorite habitats are warm rooms with high humidity (under the bathroom or sink, behind ceramic tiles). In the same places, you can find colonies of red ants, which always indicates a close location of the nest.

It is interesting: coloration of domestic ants can vary depending on the temperature and nature of the food eaten.

Some wild ants, which moved to the entrance or basement during the cold season and felt comfortable, can stay for permanent residence, quickly expanding their habitat indoors.

Unlike wild ants, which are considered orderlies, their domestic counterparts bring only harm and inconvenience to humans.

Harm and complexity of removal

How to get rid of ants in your home

The difficulty of getting rid of these pests lies in the following:

  • location of nests in hard-to-reach places;
  • rapid development of immunity to the poisons used;
  • the impossibility of using some highly active substances in residential premises;
  • the need to carry out processing at once in the whole house, and not in one apartment or room.

    House ants

Having settled in a secluded place, ants quickly fill the entire space of the apartment. Gradually mastering the kitchen, they penetrate into the storage areas of food, get into boxes and containers with cereals, sugar. They leave everything that was on their paws there: not only dirt, but also pathogenic bacteria and viruses.

Disorders of the gastrointestinal tract necessarily appear in the inhabitants of apartments where ants have settled. People are being persecuted:

  • intoxication;
  • salmonellosis;
  • dysentery;
  • intestinal poisoning.

Ants can cause diseases that are transmitted by airborne droplets.

In addition, red ants also bite.

Salmonella bacteria

How to get rid of ants in an apartment

Pest control should be started as early as possible:

  • when several ants appear in the apartment;
  • in the presence of a large number of pests in neighbors;
  • the presence of ants on the outer walls of the house.
How to get rid of ants in the bath

If prevention is carried out in time, by destroying the insects that have appeared, you can prevent the creation of an anthill at home.

Important! In multi-apartment buildings, the key to success will be the joint efforts of all residents, when processing is carried out simultaneously throughout the house.

The most common remedies are over-the-counter drugs. To get rid of ants, remedies for crawling insects (cockroaches, bedbugs, etc.) will help.

Aerosols

A quick action occurs when using aerosols (disinsectors). It is very easy to get rid of working ants scurrying around the apartment with the help of such means, because they die instantly. However, due to rapid death, they do not have time to convey the poisonous agent to the anthill where the uterus lives.

Most popular aerosols:

  • "Raptor" - has a pleasant mint smell, is completely safe for humans and pets (there is no need to use protective equipment), very effective;

    Raptor

  • "Reid" - advantage: the ability to penetrate into hard-to-reach places, but it is dangerous for humans (it is not recommended to use it in closed rooms);
  • "Combat" - has a fruity smell, is used with closed doors and windows, quickly disappears;
  • "Dr. Klaus" - designed specifically for the fight against ants indoors.

The disadvantage of aerosols is that they are easy to ignite. Store them away from heating appliances and open flames. When working with them, it is necessary to exclude contact with the skin and the respiratory tract.

Before you start working with all of the above drugs, you should remove food, dishes, bedding and clothing from the room. During processing, you must use personal protective equipment. Aerosols are sprayed at arm's length, treating ant pathways and hard-to-reach places where nests may be.

The expected result will not be achieved if the socket was not found.

Raid from ants

Aquafumigator

High efficiency is achieved with the use of an aquafumigator.

There should be no people or animals in the room. The fire alarm should be disabled.

Sequencing:

  1. Close doors and windows tightly.
  2. Open all cabinet and table doors.
  3. Pull out drawers of bedside tables and tables.
  4. Remove the plastic container from the packaging and place it in the center of the room.
  5. Pour water into it.
  6. Place a metal container (fumigator) in the water.
  7. Leave the room, wash your hands thoroughly.
  8. Ventilate after three hours.

Re-processing is carried out after three weeks to kill insects that have re-emerged from the eggs.

Aquafumigator

Gels

Gels with a pleasant aroma that attract insects show good efficiency in cases where the use of aerosols has not yielded results. This is a chain reaction. The working ants absorb the agent, and since death occurs after a while, they manage to carry part of it to the nest to the uterus and larvae, feeding them with poison.

The following gels have proven themselves well:

  • "Fas" is a drug with intestinal action.
  • "Adamant" - one tube is enough to treat the entire apartment, the presence of a special nozzle allows you to apply the gel to inaccessible places, the death of insects occurs in a day.
  • "Anteater" - a means of paralytic action with the subsequent death of ants. It is characterized by low cost.

Also use gels:

  • "Clean house";
  • Raptor;
  • Globol;
  • "Raid".

    Syringe gel

The drugs are applied in small doses around the perimeter of the room and near the place of possible placement of the anthill, they are not removed for two weeks. Then do wet cleaning, if necessary, repeat the treatment.

Gels allow you to get rid of pests, including queens, in 3 to 4 weeks.

The gels should not be used where children and pets are present.

Other means to kill ants

In addition to the listed funds, there are special traps in the form of small boxes with bait and poison. Unlike other products, they are odorless.

Known traps:

  • "Raptor" - with an adhesive base for fixing to a wall or other surface, in a package - 6 pieces;
  • "Kombat" - does not differ in appearance from the "Raptor" trap.

    Pyrethrum

For greater efficiency, traps are installed in places where insects often accumulate: near a garbage chute or warm batteries.

Very often they use dusts in the form of crayons and powders to get rid of domestic ants, but more often they are used for prevention. They are odorless. They are applied directly in those places where insect trails pass.

  • "Mashenka" - one cheap chalk is enough to handle the entire apartment;
  • "Feverfew" (powder) - insects are not addictive; made from chamomile flowers; safe for humans and animals.

Such products are cheap and available, but their effect is manifested even longer than when using gels.

Chalk Mashenka

Folk remedies

How to get rid of ants in trees

Common remedies are boric acid baits, which are not harmful to humans.

  1. Option 1: 1 tablespoon of boric acid is added to 0.5 cups of any thick jam.
  2. Option 2: boric acid and borax are mixed in a 1: 1 ratio, sugar syrup or honey is added.
  3. Option 3: baker's yeast is mixed with honey (if the insect gets inside, the yeast swells and the insect dies).

The bait is laid out on small pieces of cut cardboard and laid out in places where insects scurry.

You can use cornmeal, it is scattered along the ant paths. When it enters the digestive system, the flour swells and the ants die.

Borax is mixed with sugar in a 1: 1 ratio, scattered around the perimeter of the room.

Ant yeast

Ants hate odors:

  • garlic;
  • chamomile;
  • cinnamon;
  • red capsicum;
  • wormwood.

Hearing smells, ants leave the apartment.

It should be borne in mind that the result when using folk methods of struggle will appear only after a few weeks.

If a nest is found, the insects can be destroyed by hand by treating the place with boiling water.

The constituents in folk remedies are available and cheap. But a good result is achieved with their simultaneous use, as auxiliary, with household chemicals.

Wormwood from ants

Prevention

For pests, the main requirements for the habitat are: food availability, humidity and heat. By depriving them of these conditions, you can get rid of annoying tenants. Accordingly, preventive measures are:

  • the trash bin must be airtight;
  • do not leave dirty dishes in the sink;
  • store food in closed containers;
  • place cereals, sugar and other products in places inaccessible to ants;
  • remove sources of moisture;
  • maintain cleanliness in the kitchen and in all areas of the apartment.

Important! If aphids have appeared on indoor plants, this is a sure sign of the presence of ants in the house.

Carry out processing immediately if uninvited guests are noticed.

A positive effect in the fight against domestic ants can be achieved using folk remedies and drugs produced by the chemical industry.

The main thing is to start immediately when the first uninvited guests appear, preventing a massive invasion of domestic pests.

The above methods will prevent the appearance, scare away and help get rid of uninvited household members.