Table of Contents Show
Maximizing the beauty of your home doesn’t start or end at interior decoration. If you want to make your home décor really pop, one thing you can do is tackle your pest problems.
After all, no one’s going to be thinking about your gorgeous countertops if you have ants in the house.
Here are eight ways you can avoid ants and shift people’s attention back to where it belongs.
1. Seal Cracks and Holes in Walls
First off, it’s important to make sure ants don’t have a clear path of entry through the walls.
Ants are great at getting through very tight spaces, and that means if you have even very small holes in your walls, it’s possible for them to move through those holes.
Seal them off to avoid ants coming inside and finding anything that might make them want to stay.
2. Fix Leaky Pipes and Faucets
Leaky pipes and faucets are a huge problem when it comes to ants.
Ants need water as much as any other living being, and because they’re so small, they can get a lot of use out of even very small droplets of water.
Even if your leaky pipes and faucets “aren’t that bad,” you should still fix them to cut off the water supply for ants.
3. Put Food in Airtight Containers
In some homes and some areas, it’s okay to keep certain kinds of food in the containers they came in.
However, especially if you already have an ant problem, you may want to put foods like flour and cereal into a second airtight container.
This will help keep ants from finding those foods, which will help you avoid ant infestations.
4. Wipe Down Kitchen Counters After Using Them
Even the smallest crumb is great for ants. When ants are looking for food, they’ll take anything they can get, no matter how small.
It’s common for a kitchen counter to have crumbs of food leftover even after you’ve cleaned everything up. Get into the habit of wiping down your kitchen counters after using them to avoid ants.
5. Empty Trash Regularly
The trash is full of both food waste and water, which are both things ants love.
If you don’t take the trash out very regularly, or you take it out to the garage before taking it out completely, you may find more ants in your home because they’re attracted to the garbage can.
Consider emptying your trash more frequently if possible.
6. Water Indoor Plants the Appropriate Amount
Because water is so important for ants, they’re going to find any place they can where water is available. If you overwater your indoor plants, you may end up with water underneath or water on top.
Either way, it’s standing water, which ants will find and will love. Make sure you don’t have any excess water leftover when you water your plants.
7. Stack Firewood at Least 20 Feet Away from the Home
Although not all homes use firewood, there are still a distinct number of homes that need firewood to keep the house warm.
If you use firewood, it’s a good idea to keep it outside, but you should also store it at least 20 feet from the house.
Ants can often make a home inside piles of firewood, but they rarely travel more than 20 feet from their colonies.
8. Repair Cracked Pavement and Foundations
Ants are great at getting inside your home through cracks in concrete.
This can include cracks in the pavement outside your home as well as cracks in the foundation, which can be extremely tiny but still allow ants inside.
If you do have a cracked foundation, you’ll need to talk to a foundation repair expert; don’t try to fix it on your own, because DIY fixes are usually short-term and not very effective.
Conclusion
These are all great tips that can help with ants individually. When you combine all of them, it becomes even more effective. Anyone who really wants to get rid of ants needs to start at the root of the problem.
Whether you can fix the problem by taking the trash out more frequently or you need to go in and repair the home’s cracked foundation, you can take control of your ant problem.
