The smell is an awfully important sense. It triggers fond memories, and we often associate something’s smell with how we feel about it. For instance, you can tell if you’re going to be comfortable in a home once you walk in due to its smell. There’s just something about a nice-smelling house that makes you feel right at home, so what happens when pests threaten that comfort?
Odorous House Ant Concerns
These small, black/brown ants get their name from the odor they emit when they’re crushed. It’s a strong smell, slightly resembling coconuts, but not in a good way. If you think about what you do when ants get into your house, you’ll realize that you usually try and crush them. However, that plan could quickly backfire if you’re faced with an odorous house ant infestation.
Unfortunately, the odor is the least of your worries. While they can’t harm your health or your house, they do pose a threat to your food sources. They’ll squeeze their small bodies into food-storage containers and contaminate almost anything in your pantry that they can get their jaws on. Plus, if they do happen to emit their odor, the pantry is the last place you want to have to deal with the stink.
You’re most likely to find them in the most humid areas of your home: near hot water pipes, under heaters, and even building nests inside wood damaged by termites. While they’re in your house, they’re looking for a source of sugar. Sweets, especially fruit, will attract them quickly.
Prevention Practices
To prevent these nuisance pests from invading your home and ruining your stored food supply, it’s going to take some work. Starting with a deep clean is always recommended. If you’re leaving loose crumbs around, then you probably need to do a better job wiping off tables and counters after meals. However, you don’t want to leave these crumbs on the floor, so make sure to vacuum and mop regularly too. You’ll also want to police the pet food area after they’ve eaten, as they’ll often leave crumbs on the floor.
Your cleaning routine needs to be thorough and consistent, even hitting the low-traffic areas behind appliances where ants like to travel. Along with cleaning, however, you need to address your moisture issues. If they can’t find a humid area, then they probably won’t nest inside your home. Using a dehumidifier in your basements and crawl spaces can help, along with making sure that all of your rooms are properly ventilated.
Another thing is proper food and trash storage. Both food and trash need to be in some sort of container that small ants can’t squeeze through. If they send a few scout ants into your home that can’t find an easily accessible food source, they’ll move on to another property.
Many Snohomish homeowners get these prevention practices right and still wind up with an infestation. Unfortunately, if these ants want to get in, they’ll find a way. Even if you spend hours trying to seal up potential entry points with extra caulking in cracks and weather stripping under your exterior doors, they’ll be able to get in somehow. What you have to understand is that it will be just as difficult to get rid of them as it is to keep them out. Any species of ant is hard to get rid of on your own. For prevention and eradication solutions you can count on, contact the professionals at Guard Pest Control at the first sign of an ant problem.