The reasons for the appearance of ants in houses and apartments

To understand the reasons for the appearance of domestic ants, it is necessary first of all to learn about their lifestyle and the requirements that these insects put forward to the conditions of existence. Today, there are two types of “uninvited guests” who can choose your home for arranging a nest. Let's find out who they are and why they come.

What ants can be found in residential buildings?

In Russia, there are two types of domestic ants:

• pharaonic or red - these insects are very small; their body length is only 2 mm. They are not adapted to living in the wild in a temperate climate, and therefore, when the opportunity arises, try to settle in a person’s home;
• thief ants - they, unlike the previous species, may well live outdoors, and hunger can make them come to your house. They come in small groups and most often appear in summer cottages; You can meet them on the ground floor or in the basement.
  In multi-storey buildings, they almost never rise above the second floor - the female finds a secluded place in the room and establishes a nest there, from which working individuals occasionally run out to the apartment from time to time.

  Attention! Based on the above information, it is possible to establish the type of domestic parasites “living” in your apartment: if you live below the third floor, then the ants who choose your house are thieves, pharaohs above.

Representatives of both species have yellow sometimes orange body color and are the most frequent guests of residential apartments. If you live in a private house, then you can also meet with black ants. But they are not domestic, but enter the house only in search of food and, as a rule, leave after a while themselves. Unlike domestic ants, blacks do not equip nests in a person’s home, but only “walk” around all rooms in search of a source of saturation.

In old wooden houses located in a forest strip, you can sometimes find red ants. They are also not domesticated and parasitize only at the joints of logs. In addition, their appearance is isolated cases.

Reasons for the appearance

So, we have decided on the types of domestic ants, now let's find out the reasons for their appearance.

Immediately it should be said about thief ants. These insects enter the human home for one simple reason - the absence of other species of anthills nearby, where they usually get their own food in the wild.

As for the pharaohs, there will be several reasons:

• the anthill is located in the next room;
• You rarely do spring cleaning in your apartment
• the owners themselves brought pests to their home;
• ants flee and seek refuge in your apartment.

Contamination of the adjacent room

If your neighbors have a nest of ants, then expect that they will come to you soon.With a growing population, insects will begin to look for a place to create daughter anthills, and if your apartment is in close proximity to the original source, then it risks falling into the front ranks of the list of new housing.

In addition, the next apartment will not necessarily be an ant nursery. These insects love moist places very much and can come from a damp basement, of course, if there is one in your house. The presence of a chute can also cause the appearance of ants in your apartment.

And it is possible that on the ground floor of your house is a restaurant, cafe or other catering establishment. After all, ants, like cockroaches, are located where not only the source of water is located, but also an abundance of products.

Poor sanitation

Often ants come to those houses where there is a constant and inexhaustible source of food. And if you rarely carry out general cleaning, and also never disinfected the places where food waste usually accumulates, then your apartment is an ant paradise.

First, a scout will come to visit you, who will definitely see that you have something to profit from and be sure that after a while he will not be back alone. And after a week or two, a nest will be organized.

On a note! Penetrating into the house for the first time, scouts leave behind a pheromone trail, on which they again can find the way to food supplies. Therefore, after seeing several individuals that follow a chain somewhere in your kitchen, you must immediately begin measures to destroy them.

But to prevent such a development of events is quite simple:

• regularly clean where trash cans are;
• check the condition of the plumbing and at night always close the taps tightly, while it is advisable to wipe the sink dry;
• if you suspect that the ants have chosen your apartment, look for their nest near the sinks, leaking pipes, under the baseboards, in the cracks in the kitchen walls;
• Do not leave open food on the table;
• if you were able to trace which “paths” reconnaissance ants move, then these paths must be treated with a special insecticide or a reliable folk remedy, in other words, you should erase the trail that helps the parasites find their way to food.

Attention! Procrastination on your part will lead to the fact that the number of individuals will increase significantly in a few weeks and then it will be quite difficult to get rid of them.

You yourself brought ants

This situation happens quite often, but far from always this oversight on your part is capable of bringing unpleasant consequences. The fact is that ants are very organized and always attached to their nest. Even if one of them is on your clothes, and then in your house, he will immediately look for the way “home”, since ants are pests that purposefully look for new nesting places and they do not need help in this.

Interesting fact! Eggs of ants are almost impossible to bring into the house, as they are under reliable round-the-clock protection.

And it’s a completely different matter if you are “lucky” to bring an ant uterus to your home. She will certainly organize a new nest and, as a result, soon the population of ants will become quite large: some individuals will come after the uterus, others will hatch from eggs.

Sometimes, the owners of cozy apartments manage to bring a whole nest. This happens when moving, when the anthill "moves" to a new place of residence, along with furniture, food and household appliances.

Ants seek shelter from you

And the last reason is the persecution of insects in neighboring rooms. In this case, the parasites simply trigger the instinct of self-preservation, and they try to escape from danger as soon as possible.

In this case, we can advise you to pay attention to preventive measures that will not allow ants to organize a nest:

• to seal the joints of pipes and those places where they enter the wall;
• regularly carry out wet cleaning in all rooms, without exception;
  
• it is advisable to decompose repellent plants or use other repellents;
• always remove the leftover food from the table;
• immediately after washing, do the dishes;
• Take out garbage every day, especially if there is food waste in the bucket.

And periodic communication with neighbors will be useful. In the case of complaints from them on the occurrence of ants, you can be “fully armed” when insects come to equip your nest with you.