You are seeing ants on your kitchen floor or in the bathroom. What should you do? You have two options at your disposal – do it yourself, or hire a pest control company to remove the infestation. If you choose to go with the latter option, you can get the best results with the right preparation for the appointment. This will make it easier for pest control professionals to do their work and it will increase the chance of ants never returning to your home.
What Do Professional Ant Control Services Consist Of?
Modern professional pest control operators (PCOs) often use gel bait insecticides to control and eradicate ants from a building. They will usually place small beads of gel bait in areas where ants feed or travel, and they may use ant stations as containers for the gel.
Baits are very effective because they allow you to control an infestation by targeting only a few ants. These ants will find the bait, take it back to the colony, share it around, and this will lead to the collapse of the colony when the queen eventually is poisoned with the bait.
How to Prepare for an Ant Control Service
The PCO will usually provide you with a list of steps to take before arriving at your house. These instructions can also be quite useful if they are applied before you use any over-the-counter pest control products in your own DIY endeavors. Failure to prepare your home can lead to the treatment being less effective, and some PCOs won’t treat areas not prepared beforehand. Here is what some of these requirements may be:
- Clean up spills and wipe down the counters.
- Get rid of any crumbs, and vacuum the area thoroughly.
- Place food in sealed containers that are pest-proof or in the refrigerator.
- Regularly empty your trash, and regularly wash dishes while the baits are set.
- After your pet finishes eating, do not leave any pet food out in the open.
- Keep your recyclables in an anti-bacterial container until they can be taken to a recycling center.
These preparations are important because they will force the ants to focus solely on the bait as their main source of food. If there are other food sources, they might ignore the bait.
After the Pest Control Service
These are some common steps to follow after the baits have been placed:
- Be patient. Baits are not instant killers. It can take some time before the results become apparent, so you may still see ants wandering about after the bait has been applied.
- You should not spray insecticides on any ants you see while the baits are in effect. They need to continue feeding out in the open so the bait reaches the colony.
- Avoid strong cleaners around the bait. This would remove the pheromone trail that the ants use to locate the bait.
- You should not disturb ants who are moving towards or away from the bait. You can move any bait that is not being consumed over to areas where ants have been observed.
If you would like to know more about professional ant control services, contact at us today.