How to get rid of small domestic red ants. House red ants

The appearance of ants in an apartment is an unpleasant and rather serious problem. Ants crawl in search of food, and for them there is no difference between food from your table and garbage from the trash can. These insects can significantly compromise the cleanliness and hygiene of your home. Getting rid of ants in your apartment can be tricky as the nest can be in a very private place or outside of your home.

Fighting ants consists of several stages: destruction, scaring away, preventing the appearance of insects in the house in the future

In this article, we have prepared for you an overview of effective and affordable ant control products. Modern chemistry and time-tested folk recipes will help you find and defeat a small but strong opponent.

If you find several ants in your apartment, know that they do not come alone. The first individuals are scouts. They inspect your home for goodies and report the result to their colonies, after which hordes of worker ants appear in the apartment.

To get rid of ants in your apartment, the first step is to do a general cleaning. This case is urgent. Put all food in the refrigerator or special containers, thoroughly wipe the work surfaces and floors in the apartment using a cleaning agent, soda or vinegar solution.

How to get rid of ants in an apartment? Find the uterine nest. This is the most important point, otherwise the process can turn into a running in a circle.

The destruction of those ants that crawl around the house will lead nowhere, because in a day or two the uterus will enrich the population with new colonies. If the fight against insects fell to the lot of residents of an apartment building, then victory over ants is possible only with joint efforts. In some advanced cases, you have to call for help from professionals.

Why ants are dangerous

In addition to the discomfort that accompanies the appearance of ants, they carry various microbes: crawling through garbage bags, and then, moving to a sugar bowl, bread basket and other dishes, they easily spread bacteria.

In addition, ant bites can cause an allergic reaction in a person.

Ants not only bring discomfort - they are carriers of various microbes

Modern chemistry

Today, a large assortment of special preparations for ants is presented on store shelves. The price range is very wide, and everyone can choose a product within their pocket.

Modern chemistry is quite effective, but it also has side effects: before carrying out pest control, it is better to vacate the room, take children and pets away. Many pesticides can only be used outdoors. Before starting treatment, be sure to carefully read the instructions, observe the dosage and do not forget about personal protective equipment (respirator and rubber gloves).

Modern chemistry against ants is quite effective. But don't forget about personal protective equipment (respirator and rubber gloves)

Experienced experts advise using different versions of pesticides from different manufacturers, since ants quickly adapt to one type of poison.

To get rid of ants in your apartment, it is best to practice a holistic approach. Aerosols help control worker ants and destroy some nests. Powders and pellet traps can be used to destroy ant nests and queen bees. Pencils, gels and crayons serve as excellent prophylaxis and repel new insects.

Remember: family members and pets should not be in the house during aerosol spraying. All food, linen and personal belongings must be safely hidden.

Let's take a look at a list of the most popular and effective anticancer chemicals today:

  • insecticidal aerosols - Raptor, Get and Reid;
  • gels and pencils - Pinetrum, Mashenka, Global, Fas, Shturm and Raptor;
  • granules and microcapsules - "Ksulat", "Thunder", "Delicia", "Spider" and "Combat Super Attack";
  • powders - "Delicia", "Bros", "Chlorophos", "Aspid".

In addition to chemicals, ultrasonic scarers are widely available on sale. However, in practice, such devices do not work. Those electromagnetic waves and ultrasound, which are not audible to us, also have no effect on ants. You can scare away insects with more powerful waves, but they are harmful to humans.

When choosing aerosols from ants, pay attention to the presence of substances such as cypermethrin, tetramethrin in the composition. It is they who ensure the high efficiency of the drugs.

If you have the opportunity to leave your home for 2-3 days, you can invite specialists and carry out professional pest control

Home remedies

If modern chemicals are ineffective or your family members have allergic reactions, you can get rid of ants in an apartment using proven folk methods. Let's take a closer look.

Boric acid

If ants appear in the house, prepare an affordable and effective boric acid-based product.

The yolk of 1 boiled (hard-boiled) egg must be mixed with a small amount of honey or sugar and added to the mixture 20 g of boric acid, roll small balls from the resulting mass and spread them in places that arouse suspicion. In a day, the insects will die. The ants transmit the poison to each other, and gradually the ant's nest and the female will be destroyed.

Boric acid can be replaced with brown (sodium salt of boric acid), and instead of sugar or honey, some people put jam.

You can get rid of ants in an apartment with the following bait: mix minced meat with boric acid and spread along the ant paths

Yeast

Another way to get rid of ants in your apartment is to make them a "treat" with yeast and jam. Such a composition will cause fermentation, and once in the nest, it will make food supplies for the larvae unusable.

Dissolve the yeast in a glass until you get gruel, add a spoonful of sugar or honey, put the "treat" on saucers and place in places where ants congregate. Using such a tool, you will forget about red and black ants in your apartment in a week.

Glycerol

A mixture of glycerin, borax and honey will help get rid of red ants in an apartment. Mix the ingredients in equal proportions and place on saucers where insects tend to accumulate.

Pungent odors

You can get rid of house ants in an apartment with the help of unpleasant and pungent odors. This method is good as a preventive measure or if the ants do not live in your house, but come to eat.

Garlic, mint, camphor, tansy and wormwood can be used as a repeller. Lubricate the baseboards and doorway with cloves of garlic, and arrange sprigs of herbs or bay leaves in kitchen cabinets.

Medicinal powders will help get rid of domestic and red ants: pyrethrum, chamomile and boric acid. Scatter them in kitchen cabinets and on ant paths.

Remember that insects bring food to the nest along the same path. If you notice it, treat the path with baby powder or grease it with garlic - this measure contributes to the disorientation of insects, because of this, the uterus will not receive food, and the anthill will die.

Lavender, clove and citrus aromatic oils can be used as a repeller.

Spraying

Another way using pungent and unpleasant odors.

Mix 250 ml of ethyl alcohol, 20 drops of peppermint essential oil and 10 drops of lavender oil. Dilute with water to obtain 500 ml of solution. Pour the liquid into a spray bottle and spray the ant trails daily. As a rule, ants leave after 2-3 days. However, keep spraying for at least 7-10 days as insects tend to return to prospect.

You can get rid of ants in an apartment with the help of kerosene, turpentine, ammonia and denatured alcohol, which they hate. True, such smells are unpleasant for people.

Coffee

Coffee grounds are dangerous for ants. Its smell does not attract insects, but if you mix the thick with something sweet (jam, sugar, honey), the bait will work. Such a remedy is quite effective and will help you get rid of ants in your apartment.

Scotch

You can make an ant trap using double-sided tape. They glue a cardboard or plate around the perimeter, and put something sweet in the center. The disadvantage of the method is that only a part of the ants can be exterminated in this way.

Where is the best place to place traps

The tools and traps you choose are best placed in the following locations:

  • ant trails. The baits are placed directly on the trail or next to it so that insects can smell the treat;
  • places under the sink and near the trash can;
  • baseboards, joints of walls and floors, door threshold - it is through the holes that ants move from their nest to your apartment;
  • hard-to-reach places behind furniture and heating radiators;
  • ventilation ducts and walls bordering the garbage chute;
  • loggias, balconies and storage rooms.

Prophylaxis

Only comprehensive preventive measures will help to get rid of ants in an apartment forever:

  • keep the kitchen clean, carefully wipe the work surfaces from food debris, do not leave dirty dishes for a long time and be sure to wash the stove regularly;
  • do not leave food open. Meat, sweets, bread and pastries are especially attractive to ants. Fruit is also best kept refrigerated;
  • keep cereals, sugar, sweets only in sealed containers;
  • take out the trash regularly - it serves as a real bait for ants;
  • lay out mint sprigs, bay leaves, jars of aromatic oils in kitchen cabinets and smear the baseboards with ant chalk or a piece of laundry soap. You can stick a strip of scotch tape on the threshold, it will hold back the onslaught of uninvited insects;
  • after feeding pets, immediately remove food debris and wash bowls;
  • fix all cracks in the house using silicone sealant, plaster, glue, etc.

Be sure to hide food and sweets, do not leave cookies and other goodies open on the table.

Prepare protective barriers at potential ants' entry points. Make a strip at least 1 cm thick using one of the following ingredients:

  • crushed activated carbon;
  • Ground pepper (black, chili, or cayenne)
  • petrolatum;
  • turmeric;
  • cinnamon;
  • talc.

If there are few ants in the house, it makes no sense to use aggressive insecticides and once again expose the family to danger. You can use other, safer methods

Be patient and keep your home clean. If the ants have nothing to profit from, they will cease to be so persistent and, disappointed in your hospitality, eventually find a more suitable route for themselves.

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Natalia 03/27/2018 00:54

Pharaoh ants came to us on merchant ships from warm countries. They cannot live in the cold, but in apartments the living conditions for these insects are ideal. Pests eat leftover food and build nests between walls, and their small size allows them to move freely throughout the apartment building. Many do not know how to get rid of red ants in an apartment and use ineffective methods.

Fundamental rules

Only 10 percent of the entire colony catches the eye. These are working individuals who conduct exploration and search for food for the rest of the family. The ant family will not suffer if you kill only them. The Queen will quickly give birth to new offspring with foragers and scouts.

On a note!

To get rid of pests, you need to find a nest of ants in an apartment and kill it (you can understand how it looks from the photo). Or poisonous baits should be used, which the foragers themselves will carry to the queen.

Ant control is difficult for the following reasons:

  1. They, and their nests are hidden in the walls and under the baseboard.
  2. Insects adapt to some poisons and stop responding to them.
  3. If you choose a strong poisonous substance, then the worker ant will not have time to bring it to the anthill.
  4. Not all chemicals can be used indoors.

The whole house should fight red ants. If the treatment is carried out in only one apartment, then the pests will continue to multiply and run from one neighbor to another. You can use insecticides and.

Chemistry from ants in the apartment

  1. Half a glass of jam is mixed with a tablespoon of boric acid. Poisonous food is spread on cardboard boxes or flat saucers.
  2. Boric acid and borax are mixed in equal proportions. Sugar syrup or honey is added to the mixture. The bait is laid out on ant paths.

A yeast bait is a good one. The fresh product is mixed with syrup or honey and left on the routes of the red ants. swell in the stomach of the insect and cause its death. The pests eat part of the bait on the spot, and part of the bait is taken to the nest.

On a note!

People use aromatic herbs and spices against small red ants in the apartment. the smell of cinnamon, red pepper, garlic, wormwood and chamomile.

Homemade mixes do not have a quick effect. The first results are expected for several days. Ants completely disappear only after 2-3 weeks.

It is worth starting to fight red ants in the apartment as soon as they start up. If you do not take action, the arthropods will quickly breed and you will not be able to cope with them on your own.

Red ants are real occupiers. As soon as they appear in the apartment and realizing that there is something to profit from here, they immediately begin to feel at home. Perhaps there is no place in the house where they would not scurry, but the favorite place of red ants is in the kitchen. It is there that there is food for them: crumbs not removed in time, food leftovers on the table, food waste in the trash can.

Having chosen an apartment, insects begin to build nests, and their number is growing very quickly, which forces people to throw all their strength into the fight against ginger house ants.

Back in the 16th century, these insects were brought to Europe from India, hence their popular name "Indian ants". They migrated to Russia in the 19th century, and since then they settle next to a person who involuntarily provides them with food.

These are rather small insects (working ants are not more than 2-3 mm), only the fertilized queen-queen has impressive size, she looks 1.5 - 2 times larger than her "servant". The queen is constantly in the nest and never crawls out of there. Her main task is to lay eggs, which she constantly does all year round. The laid eggs develop up to 40 days.

Working ants are engaged exclusively in “black” work: they get food, feed the young and the queen with it, take care of it in every possible way, drag eggs in case of migration, etc. It is this detachment that scurries around the apartment, other members of the colony do not come across the person ...

Ways to enter the house

Particularly surprising is the invasion of ants into apartments on the upper floors of high-rise buildings. The owners are perplexed where these insects come from at such a height and what to do to remove them. But there is nothing strange in this. The reasons for the appearance of red-haired invaders can be quite understandable and even banal:

  • accidental introduction of queens into the apartment by the person himself (with things, on shoes, etc.);
  • dirt in the house (rare cleaning, constant leaving food on the table, rarely taken out garbage);
  • through ventilation holes, open doors and windows, cracks in the walls and floor;
  • from basements;
  • from neighbors (if they have a lot of insects or have recently been fighting with them).

Ginger ants don't need a special invitation. They use any possible way of penetrating into a human dwelling with great pleasure, because it is there that people themselves sometimes create comfortable conditions for their existence. And if ants have appeared in apartments suitable for their existence, they will not leave so easily.

Harm done

Naturally, the presence of the ubiquitous ants leads to discomfort, annoying, and for many it causes outright disgust. No one will like to constantly find these impudent people in their own dresser among the linen, and especially on the table, among the dishes, in the food.

But this is not the worst thing. The main danger is the transfer of infections and microbes on the paws of insects, because before they appeared in the house, these small red insects crawled wherever they could - in the mud of the basements, through sewage, etc. For this reason, the products along which the ants ran must be thrown away.

In addition, these small ants "steal" pieces of food from the table or trash and drag them into the nest, but they do not always bring everything that they have taken in full. As a result, small pieces remain in the corners, behind furniture, and start to deteriorate there. This is another danger: products scattered everywhere (especially rotting) can attract other insects to the apartment.

Another nuisance is the accumulation of ant excrement in the corners. This leads to the creation of unsanitary conditions by insects.

Considering all the negative that is associated with the appearance of these insects in the house, removing red ants from the apartment becomes the number one task.

Finding a nest is an important prerequisite for combating red ants. It is pointless to press, pour boiling water (they do it!) Only working ants, because they are not responsible for reproduction. The main thing is to destroy the uterus, since only she is engaged in replenishing the colony. If it dies, reproduction will stop, and the entire ant family will die.

But this does not mean that by moving the sofa away, you will immediately be able to find the nest. Most often, it is safely hidden, as if insects understand that this is the heart of their kind. Sometimes their house is in absolutely inaccessible places:

  • in interfloor ceilings;
  • deep behind the baseboards;
  • in wall cavities, etc.

And if, when searching for a nest, it became clear that it was not nearby and it would hardly be possible to find it, you should not rush to disassemble the floors. The uterus can be killed by creeping out workers. Without realizing it, it is the "royal servant", together with the food obtained, that will bring the successor a kind of death.

Chemicals

The most effective insecticides against ants are:

  • Powders. These funds must be diluted in water, the ratios must be indicated in the instructions. Having received a liquid insecticide, you need to spray the apartment (especially in the supposed places of accumulation and proximity of the nest). Executioner, Tetrix, Regent are considered effective powders.

  • Dusts. Pyrethrum, created on the basis of pyrethrins contained in ordinary chamomile, will help well to destroy red goose bumps. The plant is harmless and even curative for humans, but deadly for many insects. In ants, Feverfew causes general paralysis, followed by death.

  • Gels. These funds are applied around the perimeter of the room and necessarily - on the paths that have paved ants for themselves. Working individuals will certainly bring particles of poison on the bodies and legs to the nest. You can buy Fas, Shturm, Dohloks or Globol.

  • Chalk Mashenka. For a long time, no one is surprised that this bar works perfectly not only against cockroaches, as they used to think earlier, but also against other insects. It is especially good from the red counterparts of the red ants. The principle of application is also no different from the use of chalk when fighting cockroaches.

  • Aerosols. "Heavy artillery", the choice of which is most often stopped by already completely desperate owners of apartments filled with ants. Aerosol insecticides will work quickly: after 20-30 hours the insects will die. Almost any of them is an effective tool, but there is one important subtlety: you need to spray such funds into the detected nest or, at least, near it. That is, the approximate location of the ant house should already be known at the time of pest control. Raptor, Dichlorvos, Frontline, Combat, Raid, Get are considered strong sprays.

The use of chemicals is aimed at injecting poison into the nest on the paws of working individuals and the subsequent poisoning of all other members of the colony (the principle of a chain reaction). But at the same time, a person must also protect himself, since many insecticides can be dangerous for the health of people and animals:

  • all utensils, food, personal hygiene items must be hermetically sealed or taken out of the house;
  • children and pets should be absent from the apartment during processing and airing;
  • disinsection should be carried out exclusively in a protective form (respirator or gauze bandage is required).

If, after a chemical "attack" on ants, the effect did not follow, then only SES can provide salvation. Specialists called to your home will quickly understand where the ants are hiding the nest, and will use highly professional means to fight insects.

Traditional methods

Folk methods of dealing with red ants are more gentle, but often no less effective from this, especially with a small number of uninvited guests. Sometimes it is "handy" products and cheap pharmaceutical preparations that are the best means in the fight against the red-headed occupiers.

Confusing ants is a good home remedy for ants. These insects, once having charted paths for themselves, seem to program themselves to walk exclusively along them. And if a barrier is placed on such ant routes, the insects become disorientated in space, they eventually do not find their way to food and return to the nest without prey. The result is that the queen is deprived of the nutrition that is so necessary for her strength and ability to constantly produce offspring. And since such a hunger strike can drag on for some time (until a “reset” occurs in the workers' brains and they find new ways), this can have a very negative impact on the health and life of the uterus. The smartest thing ants can do in such a situation is to leave the apartment and migrate away, as they usually do.

Disorientation

For this method, you do not need to buy anything specially, everything you need is usually already in the house:

  1. Loose slides. For this, washing powder, baby powder, ground coffee or pepper, cinnamon (any to choose) will do. On the trails calculated in advance, a barrier is poured - a heap or strip about 3 cm in height. Ants cannot overcome such an obstacle, and they will not (the obstacle is not included in their "program", they are already accustomed to the free path).
  2. Cotton wool with impregnation. Tampons or cotton wool discs are taken, moistened in a pungent-smelling substance (kerosene, turpentine, garlic juice, essential oils, camphor, etc.) and placed on the paths. Ants not only will not try to overcome the obstacle, but will not crawl close to it: these pungent smells are unbearable for them. Here you can use spoiled lemons - their amber redheads also do not tolerate.
  3. Vegetable oil, petroleum jelly. If you lubricate the paths with them, insects will not crawl along them. A sticky or oily surface is disgusting and unbearable for them.
  4. Dry herbs. Ants are afraid of the scent of some plants. If you dry it, grind the dead wood and sprinkle it on the paths, the effect will be the same as in the methods described above. Tansy, lavender, acacia, elderberry, mint or banal garlic are useful for scaring away (the latter can be used both dry and fresh).

Just don't assume that disorientation will happen after the first encounter with a barrier. The insects' persistence will force them to crawl along familiar paths again and again, and only after a few unsuccessful attempts will they begin to understand that it is time to leave here forever. It can take more than one day to get red ants out in this way.

Bait

The baits are prepared on the basis of your favorite ant treats with the addition of poison. It is very important to take into account the taste preferences of insects, since they must want taste the proposed treat, which suddenly became so affordable. Since ants are known to have a sweet tooth, they are unlikely to crawl past, but at the same time will poison themselves and bring poisonous prey to the nest.

Bowls with sweet contents mixed with boric acid are placed on the ant paths. To do this, you can take honey, jam, or prepare a regular sugar syrup or solution. Most of the ants will drown in the sticky liquid, and those who are lucky enough to get out will bring poison to their fellows.

Yeast is often used instead of boric acid. They also have a detrimental effect on ants. If desired, you can make a mix of both ingredients by combining them with sweets.

Another way to get ants to eat poison, but without drowning, is boron balls. Here you can simply mix the poisonous powder with yolk, sweet semolina, thick syrup and place them on the paths of insects. The ants will definitely bring pieces of this treat into the nest and feed them to the uterus and the growing generation.

It is necessary to poison insects with 2% boric acid (not stronger), so that the poisoned ants can deliver the poison to their relatives without dying on the way. Therefore, it is better to place baits near the intended location of the nest, so that the insects' road to their home is shorter (accordingly, the delivery time will take less).

Care must be taken to ensure that any poisoned product left in an open area for ants does not accidentally get pets or children.

Difficulties in fighting ants

Fighting ants is difficult, not only because there are a lot of them in the apartment. The main problem is the amazing vitality and natural flair of these insects:

  • realizing on an instinctive level that a threat is impending, the ants can move the nest to another place, and then the owners of the dwelling will have to look for it again, and this is difficult;
  • the multitude of insects that creep out is only a tenth of their total number;
  • weak means capable of killing several dozen individuals are not an option (for a large colony this is not a loss);
  • ants develop resistance to most drugs, which forces from time to time to change the means and methods of control or to combine them;
  • and the biggest difficulty is to locate the nest, which, as already mentioned, is never in plain sight;
  • at the end of the struggle, it often seems that victory has been accomplished, but this is a false joy (the processing of the premises needs to be continued for a couple of weeks, since on the way there are more clutches that remained and survived in the nest after the death of adults).

However, these difficulties can be completely avoided if you do not ignore the prevention of the appearance of red ants in the house.

Prophylaxis

There is usually no particular difficulty in performing preventive actions. Their correct implementation will not allow ants to appear in the apartment (including again), take root and breed:

  • constantly maintain cleanliness in the house;
  • take out the trash more often;
  • lay laurel leaves on jars of bulk products (this will scare away insects and prevent them from getting inside);
  • find and patch up all cracks, holes in walls, floors, pipe-to-wall joints, etc .;
  • at least once a week, wash the floors with a solution of ammonia and laundry soap in water (ammonia can be replaced with vinegar);
  • when single individuals (scouts) appear, immediately trace where they go and solve the problem at the root.

As simple as the fight is, prevention is always easier. Getting rid of red ants in an apartment is a difficult task that requires a lot of effort and time, so it would be wiser to do everything to prevent them from settling in human housing.

Many warm, hard-to-reach places in the apartment, which are quite suitable for shelters, provide almost complete safety for ants. Therefore, house ants do not need to build a traditional anthill like their more industrious cousins. As well as obtaining food by hard ant labor becomes unnecessary, because food supplies do not stop all year round.

If ants are in the house and the desire to get rid of them is extremely strong, then you will have to learn a lot about the lifestyle and biology of these pests. Only by observing how these insects behave can one begin to effectively remove the fight. In most cases, almost everyone is convinced from their own experience that the problem associated with red ants is by no means a one-off, but a systemic one.

There can be many situations of infection, but in apartments the scenario is most often the following:

  • The first time they noticed a lonely and, possibly, the first in the apartment, a small scout ant. He appeared from nowhere, on the periphery (where there is no food). Here, more often than not, there are doubts about the reality of what he saw (imagined).
  • Some time later, it became noticeable how 3-4 individuals were courting a new path in the area of ​​a feeding center that was new for them (there was an abundance of food there this time).
  • Finally, the culmination of the problem was a recently discovered ant-infested grocery bag.

In any situation, regardless of the stage of infection and the method of struggle used, in order to win a fight with ants, it is important to answer two questions:

Why does their increase in numbers depend?

Everything is simple here. There are many ants where there is something to feed. There are some food types that, due to their irritating scent, can attract even more ants. Those ants that can be observed near food and on table surfaces are called working individuals - foragers, i.e. those who collect food and carry it to the nest to feed their relatives.

Where do most of these kitchen pests hide?

Taking with them the remnants of food, the small red ants in the apartment hide in the cracks leading to the piers, empty cavities,. These places allow them to breed safely and take care of their queen, the queen ant.

Red ants in an apartment: how to find a nest, photo

The extermination of ants will not give a result if only ordinary ants - workers are removed. Those that can be seen on the tables, near the food - foragers, can be exterminated, but this will not achieve a lasting effect. The uterus will eventually restore its original size. Getting to the queen with her brood in the nest is a top priority for those who decide to end the ants forever.

We will not reveal the secret if we say it as it is: the answer to the question of how to find a nest of ants is easy to obtain in theory, but not easy to find out in practice. Most likely, you will have to find out and not at all in your apartment, but somewhere between floors. Physically, it is sometimes impossible to do this, even if you are equipped with everything you need for such an event, from a working helmet with a flashlight to a set of fitting tools and a viewing mirror.

If the survey does not bring results, it remains to take a defensive position and conduct meticulous observations. The fight against ants is unique in that in 80% of cases one has to choose a wait-and-see pest control tactic. After all, it is possible to poison all the ants gradually, step by step, cutting off their escape routes.

Ants are social creatures that live in large colonies. Some of them have several million individuals. Each colony has a queen, whose duties include laying eggs, and worker ants, who are tasked with taking care of obtaining food for the female and her larvae. Often, these insects have to travel great distances in search of water and food for the queen. When they reach the goal and find a source of food, they leave behind a trail in the form of a certain smell so that other individuals can also get to this place. That is why you can often observe a whole "caravan" of ants. At the same time, insects do not always build their nests on the street. Some colonies settle in human dwellings. And this is quite difficult to deal with. This article will discuss how to get ants out of an apartment.

Fighting ants

Getting rid of the little red-haired invaders is quite difficult, but possible. It is important to take into account some of their vital characteristics when fighting ants. So, the heart of the colony of these insects is the nest, in which the female lives, producing new individuals. She never leaves her shelter and is unable to find food on her own. The female is fed by workers who are unable to produce offspring. If red ants have settled in an apartment, then finding their nest is quite difficult. Most often, it is hidden in a cavity of a small floor or wall. You can spot an ant hole if you're lucky. But do not immediately remove the parquet or chip off the tile. The ant corridor that leads to the nest can be very long. Then you will have to spoil more than one parquet board or tile. But we know that worker ants provide food for the entire colony. Therefore, through them, you can try to transfer the poisoned treat to the female and her offspring.

Poisonous "goodie" for ants

The ant potion must have a poison concentration of no more than 2%. Boric acid is most effective. It has the ability to eat away chitin, from which the bodies of ants are formed. But insects in this case do not die right away, they manage to carry the poison to the colony's nest.

Remedies for ants in an apartment with boric acid

There are some simple and effective recipes for making ant-killing food. With their help, you can drive insects out of the apartment. Some methods of preparation are given below.

Method number 1

Method number 3

You can prepare a bait consisting of two tablespoons (tablespoons) of minced meat and 20 grams of boric acid. Mix the components thoroughly. Then, from the resulting mass, small balls should be rolled and laid out in places where ants appear.

Identifying scout ants and preventing massive insect attacks

At the first signs that the first small ants have started up in the apartment, you need to prevent their massive invasion. At first, these can be "scouts" who identify the presence of food supplies, and then report them to the rest of the colony. So there is no time to waste. You need to start cleaning right away. Products should be packed in sealed containers or bags. Remains of meat, sweet, fatty foods should be wiped off the tables. Do not leave dirty dishes after cooking and eating. It is recommended to regularly wipe the countertops, drawers and shelves with a vinegar solution. Thanks to it, the surfaces will not only become cleaned and disinfected, but also acquire a smell that is unbearable for ants. Garbage should be taken out as often as possible, and the bucket should be kept tightly closed.

How to ward off ants with cleanliness and order in an apartment

When small ants are found in the apartment, you should rinse all cans, bottles and food containers, on the surface of which there is at least a trace of sticky or greasy foods. Particular attention should be paid to containers for jam and preserves. Bottles with sauces, jars of pickles, bottles with medicinal syrups located outside the refrigerator should not have any smudges. Foods that are most attractive to ants, such as containers of honey, can be placed in a bowl of water. Crawling into it, insects will drown.

You can also scare off ants with the help of sunflower oil, mint, elderberry leaves, wormwood, garlic, the smell of which is unbearable for them.

All of the above actions should be carried out daily throughout the week. Not finding food sources in your home, the ants will go in search of them elsewhere. They will not leave a trace on which other individuals of the colony can follow.

Yeast against ants

Not sure how to get the ants out of your apartment? Dry baker's yeast can help with this. They will need one spoon (teaspoon). The yeast is mixed with 100-150 ml of sugar syrup. The resulting product is dotted on the paths of the ants. They will love this treat. But after 10 minutes after consuming the mixture, the yeast fermentation process will begin, as a result of which the insect's abdomen will begin to swell, and it will flee. This procedure should be carried out regularly. You can simply pour the mixture into a small, low container.

Chemicals, ant traps

If you are thinking about how to get ants out of an apartment using chemical products, remember that they are dangerous for children and pets.

The drug "Regent"

It is a powder that comes in a small sachet. Its price is about 10 rubles. Dissolve the product in water and apply the mixture with a syringe (with a needle) into all cracks and holes in the floor and walls. As a result, the ants moving in them will begin to die, which will scare off other individuals.

Trap Raid

A trap made in an industrial setting, specially designed for exterminating insects, can be bought commercially. It contains toxic but attractive granules for ants, which they transfer to the nest of the colony. Thus, a large number of individuals are infected. As a result, the uterus, her offspring, and the worker ants die.

Aerosols: Dichlorvos Raid

A well-known remedy that saves not only from ants, but also from many other species of insects that have settled in a person's home. Dichlorvos should be sprayed onto the paths along which insects move, into cracks and cracks in the floor and tiles, and other potential loopholes where they may be.

Prophylaxis

We figured out how to get the ants out of the apartment. Means for this exist in large quantities, both folk and chemical. But how to make sure that the ants do not visit the apartment at all? To do this, you need to maintain perfect cleanliness in your home. There should be no crumbs or debris in the kitchen. Kitchen tiles on the walls must be washed regularly from a variety of splashes. You need to take out the trash regularly. Cereals and bulk materials should be kept in tightly sealed containers or bags. Food for animals also needs to be controlled - it is in it that the largest concentration of ants can often be found. It is advisable to clean the bowls with their food after each feeding of pets until the next time.