Ant Control Around the Home

At some time nearly everyone encounters ants. Their color varies from yellow to reddish brown to black. Ants feed on many kinds of food materials including sweets and foods. They mostly nest outdoors but the Pharaoh ant can actually nest indoors.

Before you can control ants, you must locate and destroy their nests and remove food sources by practicing strict sanitation.

You should keep food in ant-tight containers or in the refrigerator or freezer. When large number of ants get into your home, trails of ants are usually evident. You should follow the these trails in an attempt to locate the ant's nest, where they are gaining entry into your home and their food source. It is important to seal off entry points used by ants to get into the home.

Then an insecticide could be applied to the ants or to their trail. Almost any insecticide which can be used in the home and labeled for ant control will provide effective control if applied often and directly to the ants or their trail. Household aerosol sprays or dusts containing chlorpyrifos, diazinon, malathion, propoxur, pyrethrins or resmethrin can all be used to control ants in the home.

In some cases it is advisable to apply a perimeter treatment of insecticide around the entire home to keep ants out of the home. Treat approximately two feet up on the foundation wall and approximately six feet out into the yard with sprays containing diazinon or dursban. Granular insecticides can be used also.

For nests located in the yard, you can soak the nest with a liquid insecticide. Effective insecticides include diazinon, malathion or dursban. Follow the directions for mixing with water. Then saturate the nest with this liquid.

For fire ants, there are baits available such as Amdro. A couple of tablespoons of Amdro is applied around the opening of each nest. Ants will take this into the nest where it will kill the queen and wipe out the nest.

Once the bag of Amdro has been opened, it should be used up in three days. A one pound bag should cover about one acre. Aerosol sprays of chlorpyrifos (Dursban) are now available with an injection tube. The injection tube is inserted in the mound and the mound is fumigated providing highly effective ant control.

Also, licensed pest control operators are available to assist you with ant control around the home.

For more information on ant control around the home, contact your local county Extension office.