Unwelcome guests always surprise us, but at the same time, they put us into a frenzy. How will you react after watching a trail of ants passing from your doorsteps to the road across? It will be bothering us after seeing ants invade, not just our homes but places in our locality. Ants range differently based on their color, feature, and size. If you notice a brown or black ants colony in the shade, measure around 8 to 16 inches, and have pale legs and antennae. They are pavement ants.
What are pavement ants?
As the name suggests, pavement ants are colonies of ants found outside, either in splits of pavements, under sidewalks, stones, blocks, or near cement slabs. However, these outdoor places are not their only breeding and feeding spaces. Once these ants are in cracks and cuts of pavements, they will surely find ways into your homes and other spaces, mainly to search for food. The quest of these pavement ants does not end here. If they enter your homes or other places, they will start nesting in corners, walls, under floors, and pipelines.
Pavement ants are attracted towards miscellaneous insects, seeds, plant wastes, foods such as bread crumbs, honey, cheese, and sweets such as chocolates, pastries. These items will make them run across your homes and find themselves food. These pavement ants usually do not pose any great threat to your environment or health. But, they must always be a big ‘no’ as they might increase if they get proper places to breed and carry diseases too in some cases.
How to prevent pavement ants?
You must always be ready to take the right steps when you see sprinting pavements ants. If no proper actions are taken in time, there might be a risk of seeing a huge amount of these ants. Once their quantity swells, it would be harder for you to get rid of them.
Here are the ways to prevent pavement ants and ensure their shrinking:
- Use of ant baits: Ants baits involve insecticides and materials which are an attraction to the ants. Ant baits are available in different types. They can be sugar-based, fat-based, and protein-based. If the worker ants take these ant baits to the nests, and the whole colony devours on it, it will perish all of them away. Ant baits are slow in the process as they need to be first carried by the worker ants and return to their nests.
- Spraying insecticide: Spraying a reasonable amount of insecticide in places where you feel the ants are living will help clear out ants’ swelling population. Always spray the insecticide as per the instructions. You can always approach a pest control service company that will instruct you aptly on spraying these insecticides and where to. As a safety step, keep your children or pets away from the spaces sprayed for a minimum of 2 hours.
- Apply dust remedy: Treating through dust can also be an effective way to kill the colonies of growing ants. You can place enough dust near the holes, cracks, or the places where the ants reside. It will take three to four days for the dust to kill the ants. Effective dust powders for killing ants are CimeXa insecticide dust, Delta dust insecticide, and Drione dust.
- Natural methods: You can always opt for the natural ways of killing pavement ants. Using boiled water, herbs, spices, water, and vinegar, can stop the ants from growing. You can also use soap and water solution and spray it around the places where the ants have entered.
These are some of the ways to try out and kill pavement ants. However, when these steps do not work out, it is ideal for you to ring up a pest control company. This is because they attain a license and know the appropriate steps to eradicate the pest invasion. Also, pest control, rather than trying out small techniques when the situation is grave, sounds ideal and time-saving.
Now that you know what these pavement ants are and how you can take the right measure at the initial stage, continue reading more about pests and pest control on our website.
