9 Steps to Prepare for an Ant Control Service

Professional Ant Control Service

We make use of gel bait insecticides to control ants from inside the home or building. In the case of a building- we may need to make use of an odourless pyrethroid-based insecticide spray application which is applied to areas where ants trail.

The gel baiting requires the placement of small beads of gel bait, primarily in areas where ants have been seen feeding or where visible trails are present. The bait is not harmful to humans or pets.

Bait is the preferred method of control of these little critters because, in order to solve an ant problem, you need to first eliminate the ants that are not visible in order to get rid of the ants that are visible. The ants that are visible are worker ants- Their function is to scout and find food and take it back to the nest to feed the queen and her young, who are being raised for the next generation of worker ant.

For outdoor use: We make use of ant granules- which works in a similar way as the ant gel and is placed down along ant trails and near visible ant nests- which simply put is that the workers find the bait that has been placed down (gel based or granular based), carry it back to the nest, feed the queen, eliminating her and future populations.

For larger areas: We also spray garden areas with a pyrethroid-based residual insecticide that has a quick knockdown and a good residual effect.

What to do in Preparation for your Ant Control Service

Before any service is scheduled or performed, our trained sales and telesales personnel will provide you with a few simple safety procedures to follow, along with our registered pest control operator advising you of anything that’s relevant on the day of the service, with safety being the top priority when conducting a service.

However, the following lists some of the most common requests or recommendations we have

Because a lack of preparation could make a treatment unsafe or cause re-infestation of the entire home or building, many PCOs will not treat areas that are not prepared to specifications.

9 Steps In Effective Preparation

You can help our pest control operator rid your home of an ant problem by following these guidelines before the application takes place:

1. Safety first!! Just as a precautionary measure- If any spray application has to be undertaken- please ensure that the elderly, young children, asthmatic people and ladies that are pregnant vacate the area of treatment for at least 2-3 hours.
2. Wipe down counters, sweep floors, and clean up spills to reduce other potential ant food sources and make ant baits more effective
3. Vacuum thoroughly on a regular basis to eliminate even small crumbs
4. Store food in pest-proof containers, or place it in the refrigerator, as applicable.
5. Empty refuse within your home regularly. If you recycle, ensure that they are rinsed out properly and stored in ant proofed containers, and place them externally as soon as possible for collection or take to your nearest recycling centre.
6. Wash dishes or run the dishwasher regularly. Do not leave any water spills around that may attract ants.
7. Never leave pet food sitting out after the pet has finished eating. Try use anti-ant water dishes for your pets to drink from.
8. When the pest control operator arrives, explain exactly where you are seeing ants–or have seen them in the past. If the technician does not thoroughly explain what he/she will be doing to control the ants with the service, please feel free to ask for details.
9. If any external garden granular bait or spray application is going to take place- please ensure the garden is not watered for at least 3 days after the service as this will have a negative effect on the application. Rather water your garden the day before the service. This includes irrigation systems.

After the Ant Control Service

Here are some common steps to be followed after an ant service has been performed

1. Be patient. Ant Baits and gel baits do not immediately kill the ants. Rather they attract the ants for feeding, then the ant carries it back to the nest to feed the other ants of the colony- along with the reproductive queen. This is the surest way to eliminate the entire nest of ants.
2. Where the ant baits have been placed down- do not spray any insecticides or kill visible ants that you see, as they need to continue to feed on the baits to take the poison back to the colony.
3. Also, avoid using strong cleaning agents near the ant bait. This would eliminate the ant pheromone trail that the ants are using to find the bait.
4. Do not disturb ants that are moving to or away from the bait – or if they are feeding on it.