How To Deal With Tiny Ants On Your Kitchen Counter in New Jersey

It’s a beautiful morning, and you hop out of bed, ready to tackle the day. Your coffee is brewing, sending tantalizing aromas wafting through your home, and you pour a piping hot cup of joe then reach for the sugar. Oh no, the sugar bowl is moving inside. Ants have invaded, and now that coffee doesn’t sound nearly as appealing. When you opened the bowl, you set them free, and now they’re crawling on the counter and all over the place. Your once clean kitchen now feels like it’s been taken over by tiny creatures crawling with bacteria. Now you’re stressed and need to know how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counter.

Which Tiny Ants are on Your Kitchen Counters?

When you experience these tiny critters inside your home, it’s only natural to think of the sugar ant. This slang term is used far and wide throughout New Jersey to describe these pests. Ironically, there are more than 12,000 species that scientists have identified worldwide.

Don’t worry; you won’t have nearly that many to contend with in your home. The most common ants in your home are likely the house, sugar, or carpenter variety. Since so many of them look similar in size and shape, it’s no wonder people use a catch-all phrase to describe them.

If you have a leak in your plumbing, you may have attracted the brown ant, as they have a penchant for moisture. House ants tend to have a pungent odor that smells rotten. So if you have a foul smell in the air, it could be these little critters.

Some say they smell like rotten coconuts, especially when you step on them. Thank goodness these little pests don’t pose serious health risks to you, but they can contaminate your food. Did you know that ants are this state’s number one insect issue?

No wonder many homeowners keep Kapture Pest Control on speed dial, as our team knows how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counter. No one wants anything like this in their house. An interesting ant that you might encounter is the pharaoh ant. These little insects are yellow, and boy, do they like sweets. They prefer dead things and will hang around your plants and moisture area.

Though they’re certainly not the most prevalent ant in the New Jersey area, you may occasionally run across them. Unlike some ants, these critters spread disease and can cause serious health issues to you and your family.

The pavement ants are a different ballgame, as they don’t like coming inside the home. They prefer to be out and burrow underneath the pavement. They will only wander into your home when they’re low on food. They like to stay outside and close to their colony.

They’re usually brown or black and are one of the more difficult ants to control. Another major issue with these ants is that they will sting you if they feel threatened, so it’s best to avoid getting up close and personal with them.

Since most ants have similar characteristics, it’s best to have a professional that knows how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters help you identify and treat them. It’s easier to eradicate the problem once you’ve identified them.

Why Are There Ants Invading My Kitchen?

You need to know how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counter and the first step is to find what’s attracting them to come inside. The sugar ants that get inside are searching for food. They like sugary sweet things like jelly or that splatter of pudding on the floor.

There is a good chance you have left some sort of residue behind that you might not even know is there, but the tiny ants can smell it a mile away. Due to the small size of the sugar ant, they can easily climb into your cabinets to find that one piece of cereal your child spilled from the box. They’re excellent scavengers and will quickly identify anything you’ve left behind.

It’s really important that you keep food closed and covered, especially cereals. Ants see open containers as an invitation to come in and eat up. If you want to figure out how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters and prevent them from coming into your home in the first place, you need to be proactive. Here are some of the things you can do to keep them away:

• Pet food is attractive to ants, so make sure leftover pet food is thrown away.
• Wipe off all crumbs left on the kitchen table after any meal.
• Clean up any spills from food or drinks immediately.
• Keep all trash cans covered with a lid. If you must throw food away, close the bag and take it to your outdoor trash container.
• Discard any over-ripened fruit on your counter.
• Make sure your dishes are washed after each meal. Dishes in the sink attract insects, including ants and roaches.
• Use plastic sealed containers in your cabinets and pantry area to ensure no ants can get into them. Plus, your food will last longer in air-tight containers.
• Check for dripping faucets or pipes leaking, as this will bring in ants that like moisture. It can also draw things like water bugs, roaches, silverfish, and many other insects that thrive on decaying materials.
• Clean your garbage cans often. Food leaks down on the inside and can linger once the trash is gone.
• Seal any cracks around windows, doors, or the foundation of your home, as these are accessible entryways for pests.
• Like many New Jersey homeowners, you can find it difficult to know how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters, and this is especially true if you have young children. All the frequent spills can be very inviting so your cleaning routine must be a regular occurrence.

Most people view ants as a problem that they can take care of themselves, but it can be more challenging to eradicate these insects than you might think. The key is to prevent them as it makes them more manageable.

Getting Rid of Tiny Ants in Your Home

It’s an ominous feeling to have tiny intruders in your home, and you may feel like you’re losing your sanity. It would help to know how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters and what proper precautions need to be taken. Also, do some research in order to get rid of them, as what works for one ant won’t work for another. The good news is that there are many effective ways to get rid of those pesky ants.

It will help if you choose treatment options based on the best needs of the people inside the home. If you have people in the house with breathing problems, you need to be selective about the chemicals you use in your abode. Also, pets and younger children are a significant consideration with the pesticides you choose.

Additionally, you can drive the ants from your kitchen and send them into another area of the home if you don’t kill them. So the goal is to destroy them, so they don’t pack their bags and head for your children’s bedroom.

Source: https://www.pesttracker.org/redirect.php?i=22188

DIY Solutions to Deal with Tiny Ants on Your Kitchen Counter

Many DIY solutions don’t work when figuring out how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters. There are lots of variables, such as how bad the infestation is, what type of ant you’re dealing with, and how proactive you are with preventative maintenance. Before you call Kapture Pest Control for professional help, you need to know how ants thrive.

How to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counter is only part of the equation when it comes to these crafty little insects invading your home. See, putting bait or using spot-treatments can stop some of the activity, but you need to get to the nest and get the rest of the colony. The key is to reach the source of the infestation, which is the problem with many DIY methods, as they often fall short of this goal.

The abundant number of ants that live in a colony makes them challenging to treat. There can be thousands in the colony without you even knowing about them. They only move from the settlement when they need food and have run out of resources close to the nest.

If you don’t target the source, you’re only killing the few insects you see. Many of the colonies, like the pavement ants, are entirely outside. The ants running through your home are only there to get food and water to bring back to the others.

The average worker ant will travel up to 300 yards from their nest. So this means if you have ants in the backyard or the cracks of your porch, they can quickly come inside. Here are some of the most common DIY methods used when learning how to deal with tiny ants on your kitchen counters:

• Coffee Grounds
• Food Barrier Method
• Vinegar
• Boric Acid and Sugar Trap Method
• Essential Oils

If you go to your local hardware store to buy a treatment, you have a good chance that it will at least kill some of the ants. Now, keep in mind that choosing the right product for your situation is the tricky part. You don’t want to pay a fortune for chemicals when you could have quickly taken that money and paid for an exterminator.

This is the tricky balance you must consider if one product doesn’t work, and you keep buying different ones. Did you know that these store-bought methods are supposed to be “quick fixes?” They get the ants you see so that you have some relief, but many of these products don’t have the power to eradicate the colony.

Reading reviews about the product’s success, safety, and endurance can help you avoid wasting money. Also, the FDA has guidelines on these products to ensure they meet reasonable standards.

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