How to Keep Ants Out of Your Room

One of the most frequent pests homeowners will deal with is ants. They can enter homes through tiny cracks and crevices, and can even start building nests indoors. Different species of ants can cause different problems for homeowners, including ruining food, making unappealing mounds in the yard and damaging a home by hollowing out wood for nesting purposes. There is a way to keep ants out of your room once they enter a home.

Things You'll Need

  • Insecticide spray
  • Insecticide pellets
  • Caulk
  • Laundry detergent
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Instructions

    • 1

      Locate the main colony or nest being used by the ants. Just killing the ants that you see in your room will not be enough; they will keep coming back until the main colony is destroyed. Ants often build nests behind walls, under or behind cabinets and appliances, behind window and door frames and beneath floors. Colonies look like little mounds of dirt and will have numerous ants around them, in them and coming out of them.

    • 2

      Spray a nest you locate with an ant insecticide spray to kill off the workers and the queen. There are numerous sprays that can be used, and there are plenty of options to pick from at a hardware store. Vacuum up the ants that you have killed for sanitation reasons. This method only works when a nest can easily be located, however, many of the areas where nests are built are difficult to reach or find, and a different method of killing ants will be needed.

    • 3

      Purchase insecticide bait that works on ants, comes in a small, childproof plastic container and is pre-packaged with an insecticide and food pellets already in the container. Place the insecticide bait in your room where you are seeing ants. Do not spray the ants with any chemical spray; they need to take the bait back to the colony. Once the bait is brought back to the colony, all of the ants will feed on it and eventually die.

    • 4

      Check and see if less ants are being found in your room. If the bait is working, the ant population should subside in a matter of days. Make sure you do not spray insecticides or other chemicals near the bait, or ants might not take it back to the nest. If ants are still present after three or four days, switch to a different brand of insecticide bait and try again until the ant problem is eliminated.

    • 5

      Prevent ants from coming back by taking preventative measures. This would include cleaning on a regular schedule and not leaving food and other garbage lying around your room. Seal windows, door frames and holes in walls with caulk to prevent access points for ants. Scrub entrance points you see with a detergent to wash away the pheromones that attract ants. You can also spray a residual insecticide by these areas to keep ants away.