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How To Get Rid Of Ants In Your Home

Dave Maday • March 26, 2020

SAY BYE TO ANTS!

Ants — Columbia, PA — Total Exterminating Service

5 STEPS TO SUCCESS

The last thing you want to see when preparing a meal in your kitchen is a six-legged invader crawling all over your counter-top. While the good old-fashioned boot or flyswatter can do the trick for individual ants, it hardly fixes the overall problem when there are thousands of them per colony. Using chemical-based sprays to help control the infestation can often create far worse problems by endangering the health of your occupants and potentially killing the natural food sources of the ants, serving to drive them into your house further. Luckily, our 5 easy steps to follow can help you eliminate your home’s ant problems in a safe and efficient way.

1: Ensure you store food properly
The first and simplest step to take is to make certain that your house is not attractive to ant populations. Anytime that you have an open item of food it is a good idea to seal it in an air-tight container. Even food that is in a tightly wrapped bag or a closed box is vulnerable to a determined ant scout, so it is crucial for those with ant problems to take care of this. Additionally, any spilled food or liquid should be cleaned up immediately and sanitized fully. Ants are constantly on the hunt for sugars, so any traces of their favorite food will surely bring them swiftly.

2: Set and maintain ant baits
These inexpensive traps are incredibly effective against ant populations. They attract the insects with the sugary bait placed inside and swiftly traps and kills them with the chemicals therein. As an added bonus, any ant scouts that manage to survive and escape the trap will bring the toxic liquid back to their colony, ultimately damaging it further. It may take a few days of trial-and-error in order to find a brand of bait that works for the colony terrorizing your home, but it is ultimately worth it.

3: Trim shrubbery bordering your house
Everyone appreciates the look of a nicely maintained topiary, but if it comes at the price of your house being flooded with six-legged menaces, then perhaps it is best to eliminate it. Shrubbery, bushes, trees, and all manner of foliage like that can provide cover for ant colonies to grow and propagate outside of our ability as homeowners to effectively keep track of. In fact, having shrubbery that borders your home can encourage ants to form their colony there and begin spreading out in search of food.

4: Find damp spots in your home and get rid of them
House ants and carpenter ants are the two most common varieties of insects to invade your home in search of food. What do both species have in common, other than a blatant disregard for your property? They both find themselves very at home in moist areas. Rotted wood, damp tile, and other wet, in-home options can easily be converted into satellite colonies by these scavengers that can plague your kitchen more effectively for months. Preempt this by replacing any parts of your home that are damaged by water before insects get their chance.

5: Have scheduled maintenance with a local exterminator
For those who want the easiest and most reliable way to ensure that your ant and other pest problems are a thing of the past, make a maintenance schedule with your local extermination agency like TES Pest. Our team will come in at regular intervals and do what we do best, making it so that the local ant population knows to stay right where it is. This method is fully hands-off aside from making the call and absolutely guaranteed to work.

By following these 5 steps, you can eliminate the ongoing insect invasion in a safe at your home in a safe and pesticide-free way. If you don’t find success with the at-home methods provided, please do give us a call for additional information or to schedule a free on-site estimate for local customers. You’ll be happy you did, but we can’t promise your home’s pests will be.

How to deal with bugs or rodents in your business

By Dave Maday • March 26, 2020
When it comes to the presence of bugs or rodents in office buildings and commercial spaces, there is a zero-tolerance policy from customers, management…

3 Things to Know Before Calling an Exterminator

By Dave Maday • March 26, 2020
Wherever you live or work, the discovery of pests invading that space is an unwelcome one. Whether it’s a rat infestation, a tribe of ants…

Why Your Business has bugs and how to get rid of them for good

By Dave Maday • March 26, 2020
Excuse me, why are there bugs in here?” The absolutely worst phrase a customer can tell you as a business owner. Whether you work in food service, hospitality…

How To Deal With Pesky Rodent Infestations

By Dave Maday • March 26, 2020
Many of us have a certain degree of nostalgia surrounding rodents thanks to childhood cartoons, but that sense of affection can go away quickly once they start chewing through your food, gnawing your furniture, and leaving disease-spreading droppings all over your home. Rodents in your home are ultimately a pest like any other and should be kept away accordingly. While the quickest and easiest solution to any rodent infestation is to pick up the phone and call TES Pest to take care of it, some of you may prefer attempting to take matters into your own hands first. For a homeowner with revenge on their mind, here is a list of exterminator-approved tips and tricks to help deal with your rodent problem. 1. Seal Any Points of Entry – Rodents are extraordinarily good at squeezing into the smallest of available openings to invade your home and your kitchen. If an opening is the size of a quarter or larger, that is all the invitation many mice and rats need to welcome themselves to your home and begin the process of chewing up everything you own. In order to avoid this, use caulk to seal up any cracks or visible openings, particularly around piping. Make sure to avoid using anything that mice or rats can chew through as a sealant; caulk is the definitive way to go here. 2. Begin Setting Traps (With Proper Bait!) – Once you have made it so your furry invasion force has no good way to enter or leave your home easily, it is time to start setting your mouse traps. There a variety of bait options, including the stereotypical cheese, so just make sure you select one that appeals to the particular rodents in your home. It can be as simple as checking what they have been eating in your kitchen and using that. With the bait selected, you can now start seeding the traps throughout your home where you think there is rodent activity. Near known entry points, dark places, and corners of furniture are just a few places to begin. 3. Manage The Sanitation of Your Home – This can serve as a preemptive measure for those who do not yet have a rodent problem, or as a reactionary safeguard for anyone who already does. Any food items that could attract pests should be stored in airtight containers, trash and spills could be cleaned up and secured. Poor sanitation ultimately attracts rodents far more than good sanitation prevents them, so keep up with the requirements of your home as often as possible in order to make sure you don’t get an infestation due to pure idleness! 4. Keep Your House Exterior In Check – Make sure that rodents cannot approach your house by keeping the outside in consistent good order. Trim plants and topiary down to a minimum in the area immediately surrounding your house to give them less of an opportunity to create burrow networks. Additionally, eliminating any trash, debris, or anything of that nature from the outside of your home will give them less cover and therefore even less chance to make themselves a nice home base to stage their next attack on your pantry. Lining the outer portion of your house with gravel or asphalt is an investment, but would also serve as a rather permanent way to keep rodents away. 5. Call Your Friends at TES Pest – If all of these other measures haven’t worked out, it may be time to pass the torch to the people who understand rodents best. There is ultimately no need to tire yourself out chasing rodents all across your home, not to mention allowing them additional time to chew through your belongings and exposing yourself to potential diseases they carry. Just pick up the phone and call 717-584-8576 to bring in the cavalry.

6 Signs You Need To Call A Professional Extermination Service

By Dave Maday • March 26, 2020
6 Simple Signs to Identify if You’re in Need of Professional Extermination Services If you’re home or property is experiencing bugs and pests, you may have some questions about where to begin when assessing their damage and how bad they really are. Whether it’s ants in your kitchen or the sound of potential animals in your walls, these 6 signs will help you identify if you’re in need of professional extermination services to help solve the problem. Exposed or rotten wood around your home or property The condition of the wood and structure of your home or property can tell you a lot about the conditions of pests in your space. If exposed wood appears to be rotten or visibly infested with bugs, you may want to make a call to your local exterminator. Even trees that have fallen in your yard or other rotten wooden structures may be inviting bugs and pests into your home or space. Visible signs of bugs or pests in your living or working space If you can see them, you may have a problem. Some pests like rats or mice are easier to spot than small bugs or fleas. But if you catch any of them inside your space, bring out the big guns. Where there’s one, there are often times more not far behind. If your efforts to eliminate these pests don’t work the first time, you need to schedule a consultation with an extermination expert. You can hear the pests and other strange noises If you wake up in the middle of the night hearing strange noises in your attic or walls, call an extermination service professional immediately. Not only are the pests noisy and burdensome to have hanging around but they can damage insulation, wiring, and more in the walls of your property. If you wait too long, these animals often times make homes within your space and may even expand their families aka more pets for you to wrangle. Your efforts to eliminate the pests haven’t worked If you’ve already tried traps, sprays, and other over-the-counter methods of eliminating the pests but nothing keeps them away for good, a professional exterminator may need to be called. Because many pests are seasonal, your sprays or traps may appear to work for a period of time, but if they’re not professionally removed from your property, there is a high chance the pests will come back again next year. To ensure these pests are gone for good, have your local exterminator assess your property. Children or pets are effected by the pests If you have small children or pets the are feeling the effects of these pests, it may be time to get rid of them once and for all. Children may not be able to apply the same topical remedies for bug bites adults, can and cats or dogs may suffer through housing those pests in their coats for the season. You feel the pests on you or your furniture The last straw for many homeowners is when pests invade their home and personal spaces. If you have pests on your furniture or you may even feel them on your skin, do yourself a favor and get professional help. At this point, the infestations are often times too large to handle with home remedies and products. Your local pest extermination service will be happy to help get your home or property back to normal. If you have other questions about pest elimination or control services, let us know! We’re happy to answer any of your questions and offer free on-site estimates for local customers. Don’t wait until it’s too late to call for help. Get rid of your pests and bugs today!
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