When ants invade your home, they get everywhere, especially into food. They are relentless, they are unsightly, and because they have probably been through unsanitary areas on the way, protecting your family and your food matters. Ants can even damage stored food to the point where it is unfit to eat.

If you are searching for how to get rid of ants, the honest answer starts with understanding why the usual quick fixes fail, because the ants on your bench are only ever a tiny fraction of the colony.

Common DIY Methods and Why They Fail

Most advice on how to get rid of ants starts and ends with a spray can, and that is exactly why it fails. Here are the usual approaches and where each one falls short.

Finding the Nest and Cleaning Up Trails

Black ants nest outdoors, in ceilings and under paving. From there, foraging workers follow well defined trails into your home and cluster around whatever food they find, from oils and butter to sweet foods, meats, breads and biscuits.

Spend a few minutes watching a busy trail and follow it in both directions. You will usually see where the ants are entering, through a gap in paving, a weep hole, a window frame or a crack in the wall, and which way the nest lies.

• Wash trail lines with warm soapy water to break the scent trail the workers follow.
• Keep benches and floors clean of spills and food remnants. Cleanliness is the key to not attracting ants indoors.
• Store food in clean, tightly closed containers so foragers come back empty handed.
• Fix dripping taps and wipe up standing water, since workers are hunting water as well as food.

Sealing Entry Points

Once you know where the trails come in, close those doors. Use gap filler or silicone on cracks in walls and paving joints, fit weather strips to draughty doors, and seal gaps around window frames, skirting boards and pipe penetrations.

Be realistic about what sealing achieves, though. It makes your home harder to raid and forces trails into the open, but with an established colony nearby, exclusion alone rarely ends the problem. The nest is still there, still sending workers.

Kill the nest and the trails end. Kill the trail and the nest sends more.

When to Call a Professional

If the trails keep returning no matter what you clean and seal, the colony is winning, and the real answer to how to get rid of ants for good is to destroy the nest, not the workers. That is exactly what professional baiting does.

Murray’s solution for black ant control is baiting, which destroys the source of the problem: the nest. Only small numbers of ants need to feed on the bait at the surface to eradicate tens of thousands hiding underground, in walls or in the roof, and there is no danger to pets or people.

A typical warrantied program includes interior gel or liquid baiting, external treatment where required, direct nest treatment when the nest can be located, a return visit 7 to 14 days later, a detailed report with findings and recommendations, and a free service period of three months on the treated area.

You can read more about Murray’s ant control service, or metro Adelaide residential customers can book the ant treatment deal online and save. Commercial and regional customers can email website@murraypestcontrol.com.au to arrange service through their nearest branch.

Ant Control FAQs

So that is how to get rid of ants properly: clean the trails, seal the gaps, skip the spray can, and when the colony keeps winning, bring in baiting that removes the nest itself. One treatment at the source beats a hundred squirts at the symptoms.