What Are Those Tiny Ants In Your Bathroom?
If you find a trail of tiny ants in your bathroom that range from yellow to reddish-brown in color, you might think that you have a sugar ant infestation. The pests in your bathroom may be pharaoh ants, which behave similar to sugar ants. Pharaoh ants can build multiple nesting sites in your home, including in the baseboards and walls of your bathroom. Here's more details about pharaoh ants, why the pests infest your bathroom, and what you can do to eliminate them.
What Are Pharaoh Ants?
Like sugar ants, pharaoh ants love to eat sugary things. However, pharaoh ants can also consume items made with fat and oil. The pests are some of the smallest ants to invade homes, generally ranging from 1/2 to 2 millimeters long. Sugar ants tend to range from 5 to 15 millimeters long and are orange-brown in color.
One of the problems with pharaoh ants is their ability to hide in places you can't easily access, such as behind your walls. The pests generally forage for food any time of the day and night. They also release a special chemical once they find food. Other ants follow the chemical's scent to the food source. In the case of your bathroom, the food source might be your fragrant bars of soap.
Most soap contains fat as an ingredient. The ants consume the fat or take it back to their nests. The pests will create a long trail that leads directly between the new food source and their nests. If you disturb the trail, the ants will most likely scatter out. However, you may expect the ants to create a new trail to reach the soap.
How Do You Get Rid of Pharaoh Ants?
If you haven't done so already, contact ant pest control services to help you get rid of your pest problem. Pharaoh ants can rebuild new nesting sites if you disturb their old ones with bug spray or another chemical that can penetrate the crevices between your flooring and walls. Instead of creating new headaches, pest control can place bait stations around your home that entice the ants to feed. The baits typically contain slow-acting poisons, so keep all pets and children away from them.
It may take a little while for the bait to take affect on the colony. To eliminate the colony, you must get rid of the queens. Queens can reproduce rapidly, so only treating the ants you see won't solve your pest problem completely.
To keep the ants away from your home, use bottled soap cleansers instead of bar soaps. Be sure to rinse and dry the containers immediately after use. Also, follow the same steps with shampoos and conditioners, since these products can also contain fatty ingredients.
For more information about pharaoh ants, contact pest control today.
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