how have i got ants all over my tops in my kitchen this time of the year and how do i get rid of them?

Question

can anyone solve my problem as i dont need the little things crawling all over my xmas dinner thanks

Answer 1

Don't know where you are, but in UK, open your doors and windows, turn your heating of.

Answer 2

Ants are an annoying problem that frequently crops up during the summer months. All it takes is one drop of juice on the floor, a bread crumb or even a dab of peanut butter that you missed cleaning and they are all over the place! Since using toxic sprays might not be such a great idea in the kitchen, where ants usually end up, it is preferable to use natural methods to get rid of them.

Keeping your kitchen as clean as possible is the best way to prevent an ant invasion. You should try to clean up messes and spills as soon as they happen and wash out the cloth frequently so it isn't spreading food smells around the kitchen. Use bleach to disinfect it and you shouldn't have a problem. Seal off the cracks between counter and stove, too, since a lot of food can fall down there and attract pests.

Ants send out scouts who leave scent trails for the rest of the ants to follow directly to the food source. You can erase this trail by wiping your counters and floors with one part vinegar diluted in three parts water. This prevents the rest of the ants from following the trail.

You can find out where the ants are getting in, just follow the line back to the entrance. This might be a crack in the floor or a tiny hole in the wall, they are quite adept at managing to get into any room in the house. Once you know where they are coming in, you can either block the hole up or try another natural method. Often, if you simply block the hole, the ants will just find another way in.

Try mashing up some garlic in a mortar and pestle and rubbing it over the area. Your house will smell of garlic, but ants absolutely hate the stuff and will stop coming through the hole! You can use this outdoors as well, if you find that they are coming in through a crack in the foundation or siding. This will prevent the ants from even attempting to enter the house.

Finding that a stream of tiny ants have invaded your home can be disconcerting, especially if you are a clean person. However, they are very good at finding the most minute bit of food and it doesn't necessarily reflect on your cleaning abilities. With the natural remedies given above, you can easily get rid of the pests without the use of toxic poisons.

Answer 3

In the past we had one problem with ants in our kitchen. What we did was locate how the ants were getting in and blocked that entrance. We cleaned the kitchen top to bottom and cleaned the surrounding rooms just in case. Ants come into your house perhaps when the floors and surfaces have sweet foods or just any foods on them. I suggest wiping all your surfaces and severly cleaning all the floors to ensure that they dont return. Since then weve kept our kitchen spick and span and havent had that problem again.If the problem keeps occuring your best option would be to inform an extermination company to get rid of them.

Answer 4

Had this once. Ants are coming for something, they don't just wander around.

First job is to follow their trail to find out what they're going for - typically a jam jar or something with debris around the top, or maybe a cupboard shelf with crumbs lying around. Clean whatever this is first.

Next job follow their trail to find out where they're coming in from. Close this off with ant powder. Only when you've done this you can clean worktops with bleach (I used Harpic loo cleaner) and clean them daily until the ants have gone.

Answer 5

Ooh yes very big ants so big they are RODENTS!!
^.- Use ant powder where they r coming in (follow them back along their lines) and like you can get them sort of honeycomb shaped little house things which smell good to ants, they go in it and its got poison in it. Dont leave out any food and wash the side boards (counters, whatever) after.

Answer 6

we had a BIG problem in the summer we discovered that they were comming in through the outside wall apart from propriety brands of ant powder we tried smoking them out there was what seemed like hundreds of queens (with wings) eventualy we must have killed them off (we think) and we had the outside wall pointed but back to your urgent problem bleach your tops and keep killing them as they appear try and find out just where they are comming in from and fill this with ant powder but please ensure that the surfaces are clean of then before preparing any food as they CAN carry salmonella

Answer 7

it's crazy i know but my old apartment, we had ants in february....huge amoutns of snow outside, huge amounts of ants inside. it was CRAZY and no one belived us!!!

we went out and got some ant traps from walmart and stuck them in areas where we thought they would be coming from, then SUPER CLEANED.

we noticed they where mainly in the kitchen and ANY TINY crumb of food on the floor was attracting them. once we put down the traps and basicly swept the floor once a day they dissappeared pretty quickly.

also try seeing if you can find where they nest. we did that at my aunts one summer and found a colony, eggs and all, under a flower pot right outside her front door.

Answer 8

They probs found a sugar sauce in your kitchen. If you watch them, you will find the hole they are using to access you home. When you find it, put down plenty of ant killer, they will walk this back to the nest and in time, sort your problem.

Answer 9

Set up some ant traps. They'll take some back to the nest, then they'll all die off. Sprays are available. Follow instructions carefully.

Answer 10

clean a over ur house then vamce the ant sorry for bad spelling

Answer 11

we have this same problem, during summer/autumn you can put down, these ant posonious circle thingsunder your cupboards , that attract the ants to it, and they eat the powder within it and it kills them, it does work because we haven't had ants since, we put them down.