Hood River Ant Control
Pointe Understands Local Ant Control
Ants may seem like one of the least upsetting species of insect you can find in your home, but they can do a great deal of damage in large numbers. While it’s very difficult to keep stray ants from entering your house, those that enter will leave a pheromone trail for other ants to follow. The trail acts as the most perfect type of breadcrumb. Of course, the ants will only have cause to stay if you are providing them with food. So one of the first orders of business for you will be to determine why the ants want to get in.
Even very clean houses can residue on countertops that ants can eat. In cases where there’s food left over in garbage bags or in dirty dishes in the sink, you can find yourself with a full-on infestation. If that’s the case, the first thing that you’ll likely do is buy ant traps from the store. For reasons we’ll get into below, ant traps don’t always work. At that point, you either live with the problem or call in the professionals. Pointe Pest Control understands how ant infestations happen and what you can do to not only get rid of a current problem but prevent a future one. Give us a call or contact us online and we will conduct a full inspection.
Why Do Store-Bought Ant Traps Fail?
There are two kinds of store-bought ant traps. At least some of them will purport to be “quick killing”. Quick killing ant traps do exactly what they say: They poison the ant and it dies immediately. Yet this is not the preferred outcome. The hope is that the ant will take the poison back to their colony where they will share it with the other ants and they will all die together. The only thing that quick killing ant traps do is lure ants to their death. Hence, you accumulate a pile of dead ants under your sink or couch.
In addition, homeowners may not be sure which baits to buy from the store. Indeed, this is more complicated than passing a cashier $10. Different types of ants have different dietary needs and the dietary needs of those ants shift throughout the year. Ants like their proteins in the spring and then in late summer, they prefer a carb-rich diet. If your baits aren’t working, they’re probably the wrong ones.
One other thing that homeowners don’t do very well is place their baits. Remember, that the purpose of a bait is to lure ants to take the poison, bring it back to their colony, and kill the entire colony. However, you are luring these ants into your home which makes it a bit of a risk. You may end up luring ants that you don’t have into your home and doubling the problem. Knowing your ant is the first key to success.