Where do ants come from in an apartment? Danger and harm of ants to humans. Why can’t you delay removing pests? Features of the use of chemicals and folk remedies for red ants in the apartment. Preventative measures to prevent ant infestation.
If one ant accidentally enters the house, there is no need to worry about the threat. But when a whole colony of uninvited guests is discovered, urgent action is required.
Red ants in an apartment or house are a real disaster for owners, since the pests not only spoil food and bite painfully, but can also carry infectious diseases, and the process of fighting them is quite complex and lengthy.
Features of lifestyle and reasons for the appearance of a house
Ants are social creatures; they never live alone. There are several reasons why red ants appear in an apartment.
"Robbers"
- Availability of food for them - open containers with food, honey and jam in vases on the table, leftover food in pets’ bowls, etc.
- Unsanitary condition of housing - scattered garbage, food crumbs, dirt, dampness.
- Sources of water - running taps and pipes, puddles near the sink in the kitchen, under the bathroom, etc.
- Cluttering of space, giving ants the opportunity to exist unnoticed.
On a note! To prevent red ants from infesting your apartment, do not give them the opportunity to discover sources of water and food.
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Categories: Home Security
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Where do they come from?
Small red ants do not immediately appear in large numbers in an apartment. A scout ant makes a foray in search of a new place to create a colony. If, for example, in the kitchen it detects leftover food and water, i.e. When conditions are suitable, a group of working ants, led by the queen, appears in the room. They bring a number of eggs, larvae and pupae and organize a new nest.
Most often, house ants come through unnoticeable holes in walls and floors:
- from neighbors;
- from the basement;
- from interfloor ceilings;
- from garbage chutes;
- from nearby houses.
What places do ants choose in the house?
This type of insect breeds a colony inside the apartment, which is subsequently divided into small groups that settle throughout the entire premises.
Most often they choose corners, baseboards, appliances, bathrooms, kitchen cabinets, a place under torn linoleum, and sometimes they can be found wearing long-abandoned clothes.
Despite the different places of residence of the groups, they are connected systems living the same life. In addition, there is a choice of a place to store food supplies and their excrement. Females, males, guards and workers live inside the nest.
What do they eat and what harm do they do?
Red house ants are omnivores. For the process of reproduction and development, they need protein and carbohydrate foods. In order to obtain nutrients, they are able to consume and spoil materials such as:
- natural fabrics (cotton, linen);
- leather products (cow, pork);
- wire insulation.
Ants carry infections that are dangerous to humans:
- salmonellosis;
- E. coli;
- dysentery;
- typhoid fever.
House ants can spread diseases in pets:
- panleukopenia;
- enteritis;
- plague,
- carry microscopic eggs of blood-sucking parasites, such as fleas.
Electronic repellers
An alternative way to drive ants out of your home is with an electronic device.
This is a small gadget that produces a sound of a special frequency, inaudible to humans and animals, but painful for insects. They will not die, but will leave the territory, so the repeller is an excellent protection against ants, especially if there is a threat of the colony returning. Electronic insect repeller
If the gadget is intended for a small area, then several devices are purchased to effectively scare away ants. For example, one device helps get rid of ants in the kitchen, but they move into neighboring rooms. To prevent this from happening, they also need to be installed with the same device.
They operate from mains or batteries. A portable device will be able to expel insects from a much larger area.
Ultrasonic repeller EcoSniper “4 in 1”. Designed to repel: ants, mosquitoes, bedbugs, crawling insects. Safe for pets. Action area - 300 m²
Unfortunately, most of the electronic insect repellent devices offered are completely useless. Some of them were tested by Galileo.
How to deal with red ants?
If you find red ants in your home, don’t think twice about how to get rid of them. The first step is to block all access routes for insects into your home.
Means of struggle
- Seal existing cracks in windows.
- Fill the joints of wall panels, cracks behind baseboards, etc. with polyurethane foam and silicone sealant.
On a note! Only 10% of the total number of ants that have settled in the house can be seen on the surface. These are working individuals that obtain food, which they take to the anthill. First of all, the “queen” gets food, then all the other individuals. Insecticides used to control ants have a cumulative effect. Their poisonous effect gradually spreads to all individuals and allows them to get rid of the entire population over time. The key to a victorious war with ants is the destruction of queens that give rise to new generations of ants.
Fighting methods
both ammonia and boron powder are used in the fight.
When fighting woodworms, do not forget that they live in a colony. There is no point in exterminating those ants that run around the apartment (house). You need to strike directly at the nest.
Also, don’t forget about your neighbors. Before you start poisoning ants, you should notify neighboring residents about this and disinfect the entire apartment building. Without this, the problem will not be solved, and the fire insects will return again.
Some people, when dealing with unwanted neighbors, first of all resort to folk remedies. For example, people recommend growing mint at home for the simple reason that red ants cannot stand this smell, as well as lavender and wormwood. In addition, you can sprinkle cinnamon or ground pepper around the house. But this method is a good preventive measure, and may not help when exterminating harmful insects.
Why are they difficult to remove?
Small red ants form giant colonies within the same house. Moreover, anthill nests are built of a diffuse type. This means that a large number of nests are located separately, but are connected to each other. To get rid of an ant infestation, it is necessary to destroy all nests in the building.
Other reasons causing difficulties in the fight.
- In a colony of pharaoh ants there is not one queen producing offspring, but several dozen, in some cases several hundred, “queens.” New members of the community are born very quickly (38-42 days from the moment the egg is laid, depending on the “caste”) and in large numbers. Red ants do not hibernate; swarming occurs all year round.
- In general, the colony is very numerous: from 3 thousand to 350 thousand individuals.
- Ants can live in any cavities: in folds of clothing, in dishes, in household appliances, etc.
- Part of the ant community (female, workers with larvae and pupae) can migrate to another place and start a new colony.
Calling a special pest control service
This is the simplest, most effective, and most importantly - the fastest way to deal with them. The only significant disadvantage is the high cost of such a service. However, if you compare all the money that you may spend on chemicals, sprays, “feed” and other means of combating household pests, then this method will prove to be equivalent in cost. As a result, it will be easier to remove ants with the help of professional services.
Even if professionals who are slightly different from those you expected come to you on call (for example, instead of a group in white overalls, several middle-aged women come, who bear little resemblance to the employees from the advertising photo), the result will still be quite effective, because that such organizations know what they take money for: they know all the fastest and most effective ways to fight, and most importantly, they have all the necessary means and equipment.
Traditional methods
Control methods that the population used before the invention of chemical insecticides are based on the use of pharmaceutical borax or boric acid (sold without a prescription).
To get rid of ants, baits that are placed along the path of the insects are effective. Products that have a strong, attractive odor are mixed with borax; approximate proportion: for 1 cup of bait, 1 tbsp. l. drug. Can be used:
- sugar or honey solution;
- chopped meat;
- boiled potatoes.
Smells that repel ants:
- vinegar;
- citrus fruits;
- spices (turmeric, pepper, cloves).
Turmeric
Sprinkle the surfaces on which pests move with the indicated spices or spray them with an aqueous solution.
Complete destruction of anthills
Destruction of the protruding part of the anthill will not bring any results. All structures and the main part of the colony are located deep underground. The passages can extend for tens of meters vertically and horizontally. In order to get to the most distant passages, a certain approach is needed.
You can completely destroy a colony in the following ways:
- Use special poisonous drugs. You need to pour a ring of poisonous powder around the anthill, which has a delayed effect. Within a few days, all the worker ants will pass through it. They will spread the poison to all corners of the dungeon, infecting every square centimeter of it. In a few days, the death will begin, which will end with the complete destruction of the colony.
- Filling the anthill with various solutions. Traditional recipes give a good effect. You need to dissolve 2 tbsp in a bucket of water. vinegar, shampoo and used vegetable oil. After this, stir up the anthill and start pouring the solution into it. If one bucket is not enough, the procedure must be repeated.
- Remove pests with boiling water. This method gives the desired result only when the communication passages are shallow and short-lived. Within a meter the boiling water cools down.
You can flood the insects' home with pesticides. However, this can cause quite a strong side effect. The poison will destroy all living things within a radius of several tens of meters.
In addition, there is a high probability of it getting into groundwater. So you can turn your site into a scorched desert. Therefore, the choice of pest control methods must be approached carefully and prudently.
Store products
Modern industrially produced insecticides will help ensure that ants are eliminated in a short time.
- The aerosol product “Raptor” is sprayed in places where insects accumulate.
- Long-acting gels “FAS” or “Raptor” are applied in dotted lines around the perimeter of the room.
- Chalk "Mashenka" is designed for processing an area of 25 square meters. m. The product is highly effective and very affordable.
- Raid traps are placed on ant paths and allow you to destroy the entire colony in a week.
- Delicia powder can be used in two ways: dissolved in water and sprayed behind baseboards, under furniture, etc., or sprinkled in places where insects have been noticed.
What attracts insects to the garden
Ants in the garden
Many people are interested in why ants appear in their garden plots. From the eggs laid by the female, which outwardly resemble small white worms, young offspring very soon appear. The “position” of future individuals depends on the quality of the food that the older ants feed it.
Finding food and providing it to the whole family rests with the worker ants. Having found a more favorable place to live, they can migrate there as a whole colony. It is there that the ants will be able to enjoy her sweet secretions (honeydew). Plants from such proximity begin to get very sick and dry out.
On a note!
Ants damage the root system of trees by setting up their nests there. They cause no less harm to lawns. Pests also spray formic acid on the fruits, causing the latter to begin to deteriorate. If no measures are taken, their presence will very soon affect the harvest.
Therefore, it is very important to remove ants from the area as quickly as possible.
Prevention of ants
After successfully getting rid of small pests, the main preventive measure will be maintaining cleanliness.
- After eating, thoroughly clean all surfaces and sweep away crumbs.
- Keep food waste in a bucket with a lid and dispose of it promptly.
- Do not leave cooked food in an open container; store products (sugar, cereals, etc.) in tightly sealed jars.
- Do not leave sources of water for ants - fix dripping faucets, wipe the table and floors dry.
- Regularly inspect ventilation ducts, baseboards, spaces under furniture, stoves, and behind the refrigerator to identify the first signs of pest infestation.
- Periodically treat the ventilation holes, for example, with a pencil (chalk) against insects.
Fire ant nutrition
It may seem strange, but these insidious predators have some benefit. They eat crop pests:
- grains and legumes;
- rice;
- sugar cane, etc.
But there is still more harm. from fire ants, which have to change their morphology, behavior and lose eggs.
Insects do not get along with their “relatives”, their own kind, competing for food. They are not only predators, but also herbivores. In the photo, the fire ant is almost always captured carrying something on its back for construction or food:
- shoots, plant stems;
- various bugs, caterpillars;
- larvae;
- reptiles.
Treatment of bites
Since the poison released by a red ant bite is extremely toxic, the skin in this area will turn red and hurt for some time. The biggest danger in this case is infection. As a rule, the bite site is very itchy, and scratching can quickly introduce pathogens into the wound. When bitten by an ant, the procedure should be as follows:
- The bite site should be thoroughly washed with plenty of soap and water.
- Treat the wound with a disinfectant (hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, cologne).
- If a person is prone to allergies, taking antihistamines would be appropriate.
- You can get rid of burning and pain with the help of special ointments that have an analgesic effect.
If there are more than ten bites on the skin, you should immediately consult a doctor. Ant venom in large quantities can be life-threatening.
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First aid for a “monster” bite
At the first suspicion of a dangerous insect bite, you should quickly move away from the place where the source of fire ants is located. This must be done carefully so as not to cause unrest in the “family.” Usually, sentinel individuals begin to bite first.
You won’t be able to shake off the insects, which means you need to carefully remove them from clothing and parts of the body. They cannot be crushed, because crushed ants emit a smell, through which other members of the family receive a signal of danger and immediately begin a new attack. After this, you need to free the affected area of skin from clothing in order to reduce swelling. Rinse the area, then place a cold compress on it. Be sure to take an antihistamine. Then seek help from a medical facility. Delay can be costly because the venom is a strong allergen that often causes pulmonary edema.
