Ants often appear in the spring and summer. These creatures especially like sweet foods but they will often steal bread crumbs, peanut butter, or even meat.
The Risk
Ant problems are not usually as serious as a roach or rat infestation. However, there is a concern that ants can be carriers of salmonella and other kinds of food poisoning.
Therefore, seeking a solution to get rid of these creatures often is high priority. That way, health risks posed to you and your household would be very minimal.
Invasion of the Ants
If you are not careful your picnic basket or kitchen table could become a major feasting ground for ants. You should realize too that where one ant appears there is likely to be dozens or even hundreds more.
The longer you wait to deal with the problem the worse the problem will get. Sometimes in each situation a solution that may work at one time may not work at another.
If you have an ant invasion in your kitchen, picnic table, or elsewhere try one of the following solutions:
- Store your food in sealed containers. Usually a plastic container that no bug could chew through is best. Putting as much food as you can in your refrigerator also could help.
- Keep your kitchen clean. If you have no crumbs usually you have no ants. Therefore, scrape off any food scraps and wipe or sweep away all crumbs from the counter-tops and floors. Once all the food trails are gone the ants will usually disappear.
- Apply peppermint oil to problem areas. When you are done cleaning out corners, cracks, or open spaces where ants have congregated you may then try to apply peppermint oil if you wish. You could also put some peppermint oil on the cloth and use it to squish away any ants that may still remain.
- Try using white vinegar or black pepper. If you do not have any peppermint oil on hand, you could try using white vinegar or black pepper. Just mixing a little bit of white vinegar with some water, about equal measures of each. The black pepper you can sprinkle where ants would most congregate.
- Use ant, roach, or fly traps. Stick traps or contraptions used to kill roaches may also help. The bug usually crawls into a hole of the trap where poison is present. Either that or they walk on a sticky trap surface where they would be stuck.
- Spray a bug killer. Make sure the product is diluted if necessary. You can find both aerosol and non-aerosol solutions.
- Hiring a pest control person for serious problems. This should be a last resort as most problems can be cured with one of the solutions above. This is usually meant for situations that are so bad that the problem may never go away.
If one solution above does not work then you may want to try another. The trick in this case is to try to use as natural of a solution as possible if it will work. However, sometimes a spare amount of chemicals may be all you can do.
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