What to Do When Ants Pay a Visit

Question: How can I control the ants that periodically invade my home? --D.C., Laguna Beach

Answer: A variety of ants can become pests inside our homes. The most common ant in California homes and gardens is the Argentine ant.

Other common ants include the pharaoh ant, odorous house ant, thief ant, California fire ant and in quarantined areas of Orange and Riverside County, the red imported fire ant.

Household ants like to feed on sugar, syrup, honey, fruit juice, fats and meat. Food preferences vary among species. Ants tend to come into your home in search of food, water, warmth and shelter, or to escape the rain and heat. They might appear in buildings if other food sources become unavailable or weather changes.

Ant management requires diligent efforts and the combined use of mechanical, cultural, sanitation and chemical methods of control. It is unrealistic and impractical to try to totally eliminate ants from an outdoor area. Focus your efforts on excluding ants from buildings or valuable plants and eliminating food and water sources available to them.

Here are some things you can do:

* Control entrance into your home by caulking cracks and crevices around the structure’s foundation.

* Fill any openings inside, particularly in the kitchen and other food preparation areas.

* Use sealed containers to store sugary, syrupy sweets that ants treasure. (Be sure to keep the outside of the containers free of residue.)

* Rinse empty soda containers and remove them from your home.

* Avoid storing garbage indoors (i.e. trash compactors).

* Completely clean up grease and spills.

* Keep an eye on house plants that might be a haven for ant pests. Minimize planting trees and shrubs that support large populations of honeydew-producing insects next to buildings.

* Use soapy water to eliminate the ants’ scent trail and temporarily keep them out until the aforementioned sanitation methods can be employed.

* If the problem is severe, you might want to call a professional pest control company or consider the use of ant baits or pesticides you can apply yourself. Just be sure to clean up all food particles, or they will go for that first.

See a California Certified Nursery Professional at your local nursery for application directions and safety precautions.

For more details, check out the UC Davis pest note on household ants at https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu.