MN Homeowners Stop Ants Entering Your Home

Stopping Ants Entering Your Home Minnesota

Minnesota homeowners have more than enough to worry about; the last thing you want to have on your mind is pesky ants wandering through your home and your life.

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Get Rid Of Carpenter Ants

Minnesota Ant Pest Control

Carpenter ants, vary in size and color but are usually large (1/4-1/2 inch) and blackish.  Occasionally, swarms of winged carpenter ant reproductives will emerge inside a home.  Carpenter ant swarms usually occur in the spring and are a sure sign that a colony is nesting somewhere inside the structure.

Winged carpenter ants can be distinguished from termites by their larger size and shape of their antennae, waist and wings. 

Besides being objectionable by their presence, carpenter ants damage wood by hollowing it out for nesting.  They excavate galleries in wood which have a smooth, sandpapered appearance.  Wood which has been damaged by carpenter ants contains no mud-like material, as is the case with termites.  Shredded fragments of wood, similar in appearance to coarse sawdust, are ejected from the galleries through preexisting cracks or slits made by the ants.  When such accumulations are found (typically containing dead ants and bits of insects which the carpenter ants have eaten), it is a good indication that a carpenter ant nest is nearby.  Oftentimes, however, the excavated sawdust remains hidden behind a wall or in some other concealed area.

If you have a carpenter ant infestation, what you need is an exterminator who will locate the nest location(s) and eliminate all the ants.  They are well trained in locating their nesting location and terminating the colony.

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Ant Control And Prevention Minneapolis Part 3

What To Do About Ant Colonies

For the most part, the ants that you see roaming around your home are pretty harmless. But, when you wake up one morning and find that hundreds of them have invaded your kitchen pantry, it’s hard not to crumble in frustration and a feeling of defeat. While they may not bite you or carry any threatening viruses, getting rid of them is quite the chore.

While most people understand that cleaning up the ants you see now, or throwing away the box of food that they have gotten into won’t solve your problem, and that more ants will soon appear, many people are under the impression that if you can locate the nest where the ants are coming from, then you can treat the infestation entirely. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

The most important thing to remember about ant colonies is that they have multiple satellite nests. This means that the ants you find in your home can have one nest in a tree in your backyard, another nest in your kitchen, one in the gutters of your home, and another nest in your garage. So essentially, tracking the pattern of a few ants until you find that they seem to be going to a source such as underneath your back deck will only solve a small portion of your problem. That’s another reason why some store bought remedies won’t always work– because you have to stop the ants at the source, which you can’t always find.

Instead, if you notice that you have an ant infestation in or around your home, you should promptly contact a pest control company to come and inspect the problem. Without the proper training, even if you are told the signs to look for that would indicate a nest, you may not always be able to spot a hidden or buried colony, he says.

To deter ants from coming in to your home, we suggest examining all of your food products, especially those that are kept low to the ground in boxes, and where dry dog or cat food is stored, as this usually attracts ants as well. If you feel that something may pose a risk, such as an opened cereal box for example, dump its content into an airtight, sealable plastic container to ensure that ants won’t be able to gain access. Once ants find a viable source of food, you can almost guarantee that they’ll keep coming back until you take the appropriate action to exterminate the problem.

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