Indoor Ant Extermination

May 12th, 2012

If you have a colony of ants invading your home, you may want to learn about indoor ant extermination. Ants can be a problem in any home. They come inside during the summer months, make a trail along your floor and up your cabinets, and then raid your pantry. They always go for the good stuff first. You are likely to find ants in your peanut butter or your secret stash of cookies. No matter how hard you try, they keep coming back.

ant extermination

Do not worry, there are indoor ant extermination methods which will not release harmful chemicals around your family, pets, and food supply. The first thing to do is clean your home. Make sure all the floors and table tops are washed with hot water and soap. If you are comfortable using bleach or other cleaning products, it is recommended. Wipe down all desktops and any place you may have set food down.

Once everything is clean, clean the inside of your cupboards. Any food you can put in the fridge, do so. Keep your sugar and peanut butter in the fridge. Throw out any food which has had ants on it. Wash down the inside and outside of your cabinets, thoroughly.

After everything is cleaned out, wash your floors and cupboards with a mixture of water and vinegar. Vinegar is a natural and deterrent and will keep the ants from even attempting to enter you cupboards. Wash down all of your countertops, cabinets, and floors. Do not worry, vinegar is harmless to people and pets, therefore, it will keep everything clean and disinfected while keeping the ants out. 

If you find that you have fire ants, be careful. Fire ants, unlike sugar ants, are not so easy to get rid of and they will bite and sting if they feel you are threatened. If you need to clear out any ants, use a wet rag and bucket of soapy water. Ants cannot swim and by scooping them up with the rag and then throwing them into the bucket of water, they will drown.

If you are trying to get rid of flying ants, or those nasty carpenter ants, you may want to find their hiding place and caulk it. Carpenter ants live in the walls and they do not get scared of a clean house quite so easily. Often times people will use store purchased ant traps for these bad guys, and they may be the best idea. Once you have killed off the carpenter ants, seal up any hole they may have been coming out from. Prevention is a large part of indoor ant extermination,

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Fire Ant Bite Treatment

April 29th, 2012

Fire ant bites require immediate fire ant bite treatment. Fire ants are very common in the Southern bordering states of the United States and they are becoming more spread out each year. Fire ant bites are painful and often times numerous. However, there are ways to help with the pain.

ant bite treatment

Fire ants, thankfully, do not attack people randomly. If so, we would all be in a lot of trouble. Fire ants actually only bite when they feel that they are under threat. Fire ants are serious defenders of their colonies and do not take threats idly. 

If you have ever been bitten by a fore ant, or known someone who has, you may already be aware that fire ants always bite in groups. The reason behind this is part of their defense system. If one fire ant bites you, it injects a venom into your skin that releases a chemical the other fire ants can detect. When the other fire ants detect that chemical , it is like an air raid siren going off and they all attack at once to defend their colony. It is a brilliant strategy in the animal world, but for us humans, it is just a number of painful, itchy bites.

The first thing to do is wash off the ants. Do not use your hands to get ants off of someone, the ants will just attack you as well. Brush them off with a cloth or wash them off with liquid. Ants cannot swim and will easily wash away from skin. Make sure the ant bite victim is free of the ants.

Chances are the person who was bitten will be in serious pain, try to keep them calm and look for signs of extreme allergic reaction. If the bite victim cannot breathe, is swelling in an unusual manner, or shows any signs of anaphylactic shock, get them to the nearest hospital emergency room. Although rare, some people are very allergic to fire ant bites and it can kill them.

If the bites do not require a hospital treat them at home. Time is of the essence, and treating a bite within the first fifteen minutes will guarantee the stingis given the opportunity to cool off. First, wash the bitten are with soap and water. Once it is clean and gently dried, apply hydrogen peroxide to the bites. If you do not have peroxide, aloe plant juice, or baking soda mixed with water and made into a paste, can be applied to the bites. If you are camping, put calamine lotion on the bites. If you forgot your calamine lotion, do not panic, The cool ashes from a campfire can make a hasty fire ant bite treatment.

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Identifying An Ant Bite

April 15th, 2012

If you have small children or pets, you may want to be familiar with identifying an ant bite. During the hot summer months, ants become a serious problem to the human population. Particularly troublesome are the red fire ants, which are spreading at an alarming rate across the Southern United States due to human population expansion. Because of this, many children and pets are bitten by red fire ants each year and you may not be aware of it.

ant bite

If you have a small child, chances are they love to run around playing in the yard. Small children do not think about ants and would not be aware of any dangers surrounding a fire ant hill. If your child accidentally steps in a fire ant mound, you may hear a sudden screaming and crying, as fire ants will bite and it is quite painful.

If you fear your child has been bitten by a red fire ant, first, look for any ants on the body. The mostly likely place will be the legs or hands, however, and travel quickly, so be sure to check your child’s hair and torso as well.

If there are any ants found, wash them off immediately or they will continue to bite and sting your child. Red fire ants are very aggressive and it is important there are none lingering on your child.

Next, look for the bite marks. Red fire ants bites are easy to detect. At first, there will be a red area with small red dots. Then, a pustule appears. This can take up to twenty four hours. The pustule will appear with fluid or with a whitish color to it. Do not pop the pustule. Also, your child will be itching terribly and more than likely crying hysterically. Red fire ants leave a venom in their bites which cause a painful burning sensation that later turns into an itching sensation. It is important to treat your child immediately.

First, wash the bites of with soap and water. Your child will fight you out of their own discomfort, just continue to say soothing words to your child and hold them and let them cry. This is a painful and traumatic experience for a child. Next act quickly to lesson the pain. Use a cotton ball and apply peroxide to the bites to disinfect the venom as much as possible. Then apply a layer of calamine lotion to cool the itch. If you do not have calamine lotion, apply a paste made from baking soda and water. Work quickly to do this within the first fifteen minutes to take away the majority of the sting and itch.

If your child shows any signs of anaphylactic shock, difficulty breathing, fever, nausea, or unusual swelling get your child to the nearest emergency room immediately. If you have any questions about bite marks you see on your child, seek medical assistance immediately. Doctors are experts at identifying ant bites and any other possible insect bite it might otherwise be.

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How To Get Rid Of Ants In The House Safely

April 1st, 2012

If you have an ant problem, you may want to know how to safely get rid of ants in the house. Often during the summer ants seem to come out of nowhere. They gang up and march in straight lines into your kitchen pantry and eat all of those lovely sugary snacks you were saving for later. It seems that killing one only produces two more, however, there are methods of safely and effectively getting rid of ant invasions in your home.

how to get rid of ants in the house

If you are like so many thousands of other people and get little black sugar ants in your home, you know how terribly annoying they are. These little ants, which people refer to as sugar ants because of their knack for finding your hidden stash of candy and sweets, will not bite. They will not attack you in your sleep and nibble on your toes. They just want your cookies. The problem with these little guys is that they are numerous. You don’t just get one sugar ant you get one hundred sugar ants.

To get rid of sugar ants, you must fight them with their favorite food. Feed them sweets. By combining a little Borax, or boric acid, with a little sugar you make a deadly powder for the ants that they will unknowingly take back to their nest and meet their end. You can also combine borax with syrup, however, this will leave a sticky mess for you to have to clean up.

Using protective measures to keep the ants away is also a good idea. One method of keeping ants away is to mix some lemon juice with water and spray it in the ant infested areas. For some reason, ants do not like lemon juice sprayed on them. Also, the lemon juice and water will confuse the ant trail and they will become lost on their way back to their nest. Lemon juice and water sprayed directly on the ant nest is an excellent way to make sure these guys don’t come back.

If you keep talc powder in your home, you can also sprinkle talc on an ant mound. If ants are inside your home, chances are their home is, also. Small ant mounds may be found near a crack in the wall or in the basement. Sprinkling talc on the mound will kill the ants inside. Getting rid of ants can be a time consuming process, however, it is best to know how to safely get rid of ants in the house.

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Natural Ant Extermination

March 18th, 2012

If you are having an ant infestation problem and you do not like the idea of chemicals, you may want to consider natural ant extermination. Ants are a common problem, especially during the warm summer months. They get into your cabinet and eat your food. They hang out in your yard and bite your kids. Ants are troublesome and there are always more than one.

ant extermination

You could call an outside exterminator, however, on today’s economy, that may not be your first choice. Be assured, there are other ways to get rid of the ants without harmful chemicals. If the ants are outside, and they are not harmful fire ants, you may want to try flushing them out with water. Simply placing a water hose in the opening of the ant mound and turning on the water will flush the ants out of their colony. Ants cannot swim and will drown.

If you are unable to flush them out with water, you can always smother the ants. Pouring baby powder onto an ant hill is harmful to ants, if they inhale the baby powder the ants will not be able to breathe and will smother.  You can also create a border around the ant hills to keep them inside of it. If you sprinkle ground coffee or cayenne pepper over an ant hill, the ants will not try to cross over it.

Indoors there are precautions you can take as well. First, make sure your house is clean. Ants will find even the smallest sticky spot on a floor or table and make it their food source. Clean your cabinets for stray sugar granules or sticky candy parts as well. Ants tend to gather at food sources and cupboards are usually the first place you find ants. After the house is clean, wash everything down with a mixture of lemon juice and water. If you do not have lemon juice, white distilled vinegar will work. Ants do not like vinegar or lemon juice.

Another option is to take a rag or sponge and soak it in sugar water or syrup and water. Then, leave the sponge in one spot where you want the ants to gather. Once the ants have covered the sponge, simply throw them out. Do not leave them in an indoor trashcan. Toss the sponge in an outside trash can. Also, caulking any holes in your walls or cracks in the sidewalk can help with natural ant extermination.

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Natural Ant Bite Treatment

March 4th, 2012

If you are unlucky enough to have been bitten by an ant, you may want to know about natural ant bite treatment. Ants are not normally aggressive. They stay in their mounds until they need to come out and search for food. In fact, there are many types of ants which will not bite under any circumstances. People even keep them as pets in an ant farm.

ant bite treatment

However, there are some species which will bite. Ant bites are not to be taken lightly. Although they are small, ants that bite give off a powerful venom that some people may be severely allergic to and which can cause anaphylactic shock in those people.

If you have been bitten by one of the venomous ants, you will want to get treatment right away to sooth the itch and relieve the pain. If you are outside and not near your home, there are items which can be used to help treat the ant bite.

If you have been bitten by one ant, it is most likely you have been bitten by more than one ant. Ants do not bite singly unless there is only one ant around. Therefore, you may find that you have numerous red pustules on your skin. This is normal for an ant bite.

The first thing to do is wash the are and make sure there are no more ants lingering on you. Use a water bottle or hose to clean off the area of the skin which has been bitten and then gently dry it with a clean cloth. Pat the area dry, do not rub, as rubbing the skin can irritate the bite and make it itch more.

Next, apply something for the itch. If you have calamine lotion, calamine lotion works great to take away the itch of an ant bite. Many people carry calamine lotion in the event they come in contact with poison ivy or sumac, so if you are out camping, ask one of your fellow campers if they have calamine lotion.

If calamine lotion is not an option, use last nights cool campfire ashes. Applying the cool ashes from a campfire in a protective layer on your skin will assist in relieving the pain of the ant bites. Use a clean cloth with ice to apply to the ant bite to aid in the itching and swelling and to cool the bite down. Even if you are not near your home, you can use natural ant bite treatment from things in nature.

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Preventing An Ant Bite

February 19th, 2012

If you happen to see numerous ant hills popping up in your yard during the summer, you should take precautions for preventing an ant bite. Generally speaking, many ants do not bite they just steal your food. However, the ants that do bite, such as the red fire ant, will bite hard and painfully. It is best to avoid them.

ant bite

The first method of preventing an ant bite is, of course, to stay away from the ants. Do not go around poking sticks at ant hills and stepping on them for fun. This is a very bad idea. Most of the time, people accidentally step on ant hills or put their furniture on them, thus disturbing the ants and making them angry. Make sure you look around the ground before you set down your lawn chair. Ants do not like to be disturbed.

If you are able to safely do so, get rid of the ant hill. One method of getting rid of ants is to flush them out with a water hose. Ants do not like water and they are not able to swim, so flushing them out of their colony will destroy them. However, be aware that provoking a fore ant hill is asking for them to attack you, so perhaps this is not the most enticing method of getting rid of the ant hills.

Fire ants, like all ants, have limitations. Certain foods and plants create natural borders for them. By sprinkling an ant hill with coffee grinds, you are applying a natural border they will not pass. Once you have created a natural border on and around the ant hill, cover the mound with baby powder. Baby powder, or talc powder, smothers the ants naturally in their environment.

If you have a spray bottle, put some water and white vinegar into the bottle and spray the ant hills. Vinegar is a natural ant repellant and will keep the ants in their colony. This will not kill them, merely repel them, therefore, smothering them with talk or flushing them out may be used in combination with this method.

For yourself, if you are out camping, again, avoiding ant hill is the first way to prevent an ant bite. Also, cover your skin in a protective substance. Ants do not like vinegar or lemon juice. If you have either of these items handy, mix them with water and spray your skin. The smell of spearmint also keeps away ants, by rubbing spearmint leaves on your skin you give yourself less risk of being bitten should you happen to step on an ant hill accidentally. These are not guaranteed methods, merely preventive measure. The best method for preventing an ant bite is to avoid the ant.

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How To Safely Get Rid Of Ants In The House

February 15th, 2012

There are many methods as to how to get rid of ants in the house, but many of them involve harmful chemicals. These chemicals that will kill ants are also harmful to you, to your children, and to your pets. For this reason, you should use one of these safe but effective methods.

how to get rid of ants in the house

If you know where the nest is, you can actually destroy it by pouring boiling water down into the nest. If you pour about 3 gallons of boiling water, it should be enough to get all the way to the queen. This is a good method, but won’t work if you don’t get the queen, and it’s not always just one nest that is invading your house.

Black pepper and cayenne pepper are both great repellents. Ants simply do not like the smell of them, and so they will avoid anywhere they come across either. The best way to use these is to sprinkle them liberally along the walls, and in windows and doors wherever ants are coming in. These are easy to clean up after if you need to, and will not damage carpets or furniture. It is also completely safe for children and pets.

You can also use cinnamon in the same way. Cinnamon is great because it is fairly cheap, easy to find in bulk, and smells much nicer than black or cayenne pepper. If you are having a hard time finding the nest or if you just want to cut back on the number of ants in your garden, you can sprinkle cinnamon throughout your backyard or garden. Eventually, this will greatly decrease the ant population in your yard or garden, which will help eliminate the ant population in your house.

The most powerful of these safe and effective ant repellants is vinegar. It’s naturally pungent odor quite effectively repels ants. You can easily put this in a spray bottle and with the stream method coat the corners of doors, windows, and walls in vinegar. Once it dries, the residue will continue to repel ants. You can also use this directly on the anthill, which will force them to move their nest. Vinegar is also safe for your carpets and furniture, and can actually be used as a cleaning agent.

By using any of these methods alone or combining them, you will be able to get rid of ants in the house both safely and effectively.

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Information On Ant Extermination Methods

February 8th, 2012

If you have an ant problem, it is important to have all the information you can on and extermination. Not all exterminators are the same, and it’s important to know the correct methods that they should be following in order to be sure the ant problem in your home is being resolved.

ant extermination

In order to actually exterminate a nest of ants, you have to take out their queen. A queen ant can live for up to 30 years, and the average colony has millions of ants. Ant colonies exist wherever there is enough space for an ant to walk. They usually live underground, which could just as easily be under your car as it could be under your grass. They can also take up residence in the walls of your house, where they can become very destructive as they dig tunnels in which to live.

Ant exterminators have three steps that they follow in order to properly destroy the nest of the invading ants and keep them from getting into your house. The first step is to locate the nest. The second step is to lay out an edible pesticide. The third step is to drench the nest in pesticide. While each type of ant is different and requires a different approach to extermination, this method is considered the best, and will work with almost every kind of ant.

If you hire an exterminator who simply spays some pesticides around your house, they do not really know what they are doing, and the ants will return within a few days. Ants are experts at what they do, and will quickly find a safe route to get to their food source: your food. That is why it is extremely important to eliminate the entire nest and to kill the queen to prevent the ants from coming back. A good exterminator knows how to look for signs of ants, and will ask the right questions to find out the type of ant he’s dealing with. He will find the nest, and go from there.

Once he’s located the nest, he will spread an edible pesticide around the nest. The ants will eat this, and will carry it into the nest. The hope here is that they will feed it to the queen, which will either kill her or make her infertile. This should also kill a lot of the larvae and other ants within the colony.

Next, the rest of the colony must be eliminated in a drench method. The best experts on ant extermination will use an organic pesticide that won’t harm your yard or pets, but will effectively destroy all the remaining ants in the colony.

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Easy Ant Bite Treatment

February 1st, 2012

Once you’ve identified an ant bite, you can begin to treat it. Ant bites appear as small raised red spots that contain a white pus spot, much like a pimple. They are itchy, and can sometimes become infected with excessive itching.

ant bite treatment

Normal ant bites are not very serious, and will usually last less than a week if they are not scratched even if they are not treated with anything. However, the can be incredibly itchy, especially if there is more than one bite. At that point, you have several options. Calamine lotion is an excellent anti-itch cream and is safe to use. You can also use a hydrocortisone cream. If you’ve had problems with either of these medications in the past, be sure to check with your doctor first before applying them, and always read labels first.

If you have been itching the bites or they have opened up at all, be sure to wash them thoroughly with soap and water every day to prevent infection. You can also apply a topical antibiotic ointment so long as only the top layers of skin are broken.

Some people can have allergic reactions to ant bites. This can even happen if you’ve been bitten by ants before, as occasionally you are reacting to what was on the ant’s mouth rather than the bite itself. For example, if you are highly allergic to peanut butter and you get bitten by an ant that has just eaten some peanut butter, you could easily have a reaction.

For allergic reactions that are not severe, you can use a cold compress to help with the swelling and take any type of OTC anti-histamine. If your symptoms are not improving within a couple of days, you should go to your doctor, as something worse might be going on.

Sometimes, ant bites take time to heal, so be willing to wait them out. Prevention is important if you do not want to get bit again. There are many things you can do to prevent getting bit by ants. You can wear shoes outside, shake out any clothing or bags that have been on the ground that could have ants trapped inside, always wear gloves while working in the garden, and use natural ant repellants to keep ants away from areas that you frequent. Preventing an ant bite is usually much easier than treating one after you have one.

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