How To Keep Bugs Out Of Outdoor Storage
If you have bugs getting into your outdoor storage , there are some steps you can take to keep them out.
For starters, Id suggest switching over to plastic or airtight storage containers.
These are slightly pricier than using cardboard boxes, but there is a multitude of benefits.
Plastic containers can withstand heat, rain, wind, snow, and pretty much all weather conditions while cardboard will break down naturally over time. If youve ever opened up a box and got hit in the face with a billow of dust just to see silverfish running around, you know what I mean.
Those pests can squeeze through the smallest cracks or even chew through cardboard, so you should avoid using boxes to store your stuff.
Plastic containers also offer a complete seal. You can use any old Rubbermaid container or plastic storage crate to keep your stuff safe and stop bugs from getting in.
Theyll have a much harder time chewing through a thick layer of plastic, and your stuff will be protected from all elements outdoors.
Note that sunlight CAN make plastic brittle and break it down over time, but this is a slow process and you shouldnt be storing your stuff directly in the sunlight, to begin with. Use a tarp to protect them .
If youre really paranoid about bugs eating your old books, CDs, movies, films, magazines, antiques, or whatever else you keep in storage, get airtight containers.
Lastly, dont use boxes because theyre not secure.
Of course, make sure it doesnt damage your stored goods.
Are Ants Harmful To A Deck
Of an estimated 22,000 species of ants, over 13,800 have been identified. While most of them are not considered harmful to humans, they can be dangerous for the integrity of your deck or house.
Indeed, ants prefer to start their mounds in a location close enough to food and water. And, if your deck or home provides this, they might be starting a colony nearby or within the decks wood. Their woodwork, as well as the holes and tunnels they excavate in the deck, might make the porch and the houses foundations unsafe especially if you are dealing with Carpenter Ants!
Therefore, it is crucial to understand the reason behind the infestations and act quickly before your propertys structure is compromised.
Here are some of the most common reasons for an ant infestation on your deck.
Why Do Pavement Ants Come Inside
Pavement ants can sometimes enter homes and buildings through a buildings concrete slab, weep holes, gaps, etc. In winter, these ants sometimes will nest inside, and will typically be found near masonry walls, in wall or ceiling voids, or heat sources. They most often will travel along pipelines or electrical lines, or along the edges of carpeting.
Pavement ants will work their way inside your home in search of food sources. Once inside, they can become quite annoying, as they will travel far from their colonies to find food in your home. These ants are also attracted to moist dap areas that have a water source. Most homeowners will find these pests in the kitchen, enjoying leftover crumbs or sugar residue on countertops.
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How Do I Keep Bugs Off My Outdoor Furniture
Here are some DIY home remedies you can use to get rid of bugs on your patio furniture.
Depending on the design of the furniture, construction material, and the severity of the pest problem, it can be very easy or extremely difficult to control, manage, and eradicate those bugs.
You may need to call in a professional exterminator to control difficult pests like nesting wasps and bees.
But for everything else like spiders and beetles, you should be able to control them at home without too much difficulty.
Regardless, try a few different home remedies and see which ones work for you.
Dont rely on a single technique. Use a bunch of them in tandem for best efficacy.
Can Pavement Ants Hurt My Home
While ants chilling on your patio can be annoying and even gross if you enjoy walking around barefoot, you may be wondering if these little pests can cause structural issues to your patio or even your home. Although highly inconvenient, no, these ants do not cause structural issues to your home. As their names suggest, they typically nest beneath concrete slabs, gravel, pavement, etc. They dont nest in or eat wood like carpenter ants, so no worries!
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How To Get Rid Of Ants Outside Permanently
As a hobbyist gardener, my backyard garden is a source of joy, food and natural aesthetics outdoor living has to offer.
Unfortunately, am not the only one enjoying the outdoor living, as I have lately been experiencing a rapid invasion of ants outside my house and around my beloved backyard garden.
Is there any way on How One could Get Rid Of Ants Outside Permanently?
Ways To Get Rid Of Ants
As we have seen, ants can represent a severe threat to your decks structure and integrity. If you dont stop their colony from growing or spreading quickly, you might have to deal with even greater damages to your house. In turn, this can translate to costly repairs and renovations. And ants tend to start colonies in a similar spot every year!
In this case, calling a professional might be a great solution to eradicate the problem. However, there are also some DIY solutions to put in place if your decks or homes structure has not yet been compromised.
When using DIY products to get rid of ants, make sure to stay away from heavy chemicals that represent a danger for your family.
You can find some safe and easy ways to address the ant problem in your home in the video below:
If you are looking for more information, below you can find all the methods to use to get rid of ants and prevent them from coming back!
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How To Prevent Pavement Ants
So, youve managed to remove the ant infestation from your patio, how can you make sure this doesnt happen again? While no plan is foolproof and nature can be mighty persistent, there are a few tricks to making your patio and your home less enticing to these pavement ants.
First, it is helpful to remove any shrubs or tree branches that are in direct contact with your home. This forms an easy pathway for ants to get from the plant and find the little cracks in your home that lead inside. Another preventative tip is to seal up any cracks or crevices around your patio, as well as the windows, doors, and the foundation of your home or local business.
Get Rid Of Stacked Wood Near The Deck
One of the best places for ants to nest or start a colony is wet or moist wood. If there is any stacked wood nearby the deck, the ants might be using it as their nesting site. Indeed, stacked, dry, or moist wood provides a steady moisture source for the colony, as well as enough shelter from the elements.
If the ants have started a colony in the stacked wood and there is food in the house that they can access, they might be crossing the desk to access this food.
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Indoor Sanitation And Preparation
Get Rid of What Attracts Ants
Eliminate Food Sources for Ants Indoors
- Clean Kitchen Appliances. Ants in your kitchen can live off grease and food spills under and behind your appliances. Clean under and behind the stove, refrigerator, microwave, toaster, dishwasher, and around and underneath the sink.
- Empty and Clean Cabinets. Crumbs and food spills from stored food products provide a buffet for ants. Clean to eliminate this food source.
- Keep Food in Sealed Containers. Ants are small enough to get into cardboard packaging or loosely closed boxes and bags. Store food in metal, glass, or hard plastic sealable containers.
- Limit food consumption to one room of the house. Keeping all food and eating in one area of the home will eliminate crumbs and food spills and it limits your infestation to one area of the house.
- Clean the kitchen thoroughly each night before bed. Ants come out to feed at night, so cleaning the kitchen each night will leave nothing for foraging ants to eat. Wipe down kitchen countertops, wash all dishes, clean floors well, and put away all food.
- Vacuum or sweep all other non-food areas of the home every few days. Picking up stray crumbs and ant feces, skins, body parts, and egg sacs – which contain pheromones that attract other Ants to the same areas – will help keep your home clean.
- Empty pet food containers overnight, or cover tightly.
- Keep garbage cans clean and covered.
Eliminate Water Sources for Ants Indoors
How To Get Rid Of Ants In Driveway Cracks
If you see small crater-like dirt piles over cracks in your driveway, you are most likely dealing with pavement ants. You may think that using a garden hose to spray the dirt piles away will run them off, but you would be wrong. Simply washing away the dirt piles will have little effect on the colony, as their nest is usually very deep in the ground. It would be best if you used an outdoor slow-acting bait station beside your driveway, close to the where the ants are nesting.
Pavement ants are just one of many ant species that can prove to be pests when they trespass in your personal space. Without knowledge of how they behave, getting the upper hand on annoying pests will be very difficult. To protect your family, you must do your homework about pests that can infiltrate your home and how to eradicate them.
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Using Boric Acid As An Ant Trap
Boric acid is a slow-acting poison that is ideal for killing ants. The ants have sufficient time to take the bait back to the colony to poison all of the ants rather than just a few of them.
- Shallow container
Mix boric acid and sugar into a shallow container. Use a tub that is large enough to hold the poison yet easy for the ants to enter and exit.
Place the dish in an area where ants are spotted and wait for them to take the bait. Remove the container once you no longer see ants.
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How To Get Rid Of Nesting Wasps On Patio Furniture
Wasps that nest within your patio furniture is another common pest.
They like to establish a nest in the strangest places, like under chairs and tables. There isnt much to do other than to professionally have the wasp nest removed.
This will require a licensed exterminator in your area.
After you get it taken out, youll want to prevent future wasp infestations. You can use wasp repelling plants and place them out around your patio set to prevent them.
Additionally, wasps hate peppermint oil which you can spray around your patio set to keep them away naturally. Just mix a few drops of peppermint essential oil and water and spray it on.
Dish soap also seems to work well against wasps. Never spray a wasp directly and never remove them without protection.
Hire a professional to handle wasp infestations on your patio set, deck, or even in your deck box. These buggers will sting when provoked.
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Fire Ants Are Dangerous If You Come In Contact With Them
If its fire ants you have a problem with, they are dangerous if you come in contact with them. And if you have pets or children, they may not know to stay away from fire ants. Other species of biting or stinging ants can also cause significant pain and injury if a child is playing outside and begins digging in the area of an ant hill.
Plus, dont forget that ant hills popping up all over your yard can also be just plain unsightly. While this is not a hazard, it may make you feel embarrassed about your yard and lawn. They can also be massive pests if you barbecue or have parties outdoors frequently.
Keep Your Patio Clean
Keeping your yard clean and free of debris is the number one way to get rid of patio bugs
The only reason there are bugs all over your patio set is that theyre attracted to your garden. They came for shelter, food, or both.
And your set just happened to be a favorable object for some species to nest in. The first step is to clean up your yard.
Here are some common pitfalls that end up attracting bugs to your patio furniture:
- Long, tall grass
- Leaf litter
- Plant litter
Set aside some time and clean up your yard. This will do wonders for keeping it pest free, which ultimately should clear up the problems on your patio set.
A lot of those pests are there to hunt other pests, but if you keep your outside area clean, then they have nothing to eat.
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How To Kill Patio Ants
14 March, 2010
Patio ants or pavement ants are a small type of ant that nests beside or underneath patios and other concrete slabs such as sidewalks and driveways. Patio ants are approximately one-eighth-inch in size, but quickly become a nuisance when they travel into your home seeking food. These small ants can also create huge damages to your patio, ruining the structural integrity of your patio when they bore and nest beneath the concrete, eventually making the concrete sink in spots and crack. With proper instructions, you can effectively wipe out a colony of these ants and protect your home, pantry and patio from damage.
Create a mixture of boric acid and sugar by combining two parts of boric to each one part of sugar. Mix up only a small amount, such one-half cup of sugar and 1 cup of boric acid. Place the mixture in a dry container to reuse as necessary.
Measure out approximately one teaspoon of the boric acid and sugar mixture and place in a disposable cup. Apply a few drops of water to the powder mixture and stir the mixture with a plastic spoon. Continue to add water until the mixture is the consistency of raw egg whites.
Cut the cardboard scrap pieces into small squares measuring approximately 1 ½-inch. Use a disposable liquid dropper to suction up most of the liquid mixture and apply one drop to each cardboard square.
Warning
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The Borax And Sugar Combination
This is one of the most effective methods of killing ants in your garden. You can completely clear your troublesome garden ants within a week. To set this combination up, mix borax and sugar into a gel and drop tiny pieces close to the ants nest and trail.
The worker ants will eat some and take the rest back to their queen and the others in the nest, and that is where the magic happens. The natural boric acid will kill the ants after a short while. The borax solution is safe to use around plants but is a little toxic to humans and animals, so avoid using it where your kids or pets can reach it.
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The Deck Is On The Way To A Food Source
Even if there is no direct food source on your desk, ants might be crossing that location to access a food source. For example, if there are garbage bins on one side of the deck and the mound is on the other, ants might be crossing the deck to access the source and bring food back to the colony.
Remember that ants can use an integrated pedometer navigation system to find the shortest route between food sources and their nest. Therefore, if your deck is on this route, they might continuously cross it to access food. In this case, getting rid of that food source can help.
Do Pavement Ants Bite
Pavement ants are not usually aggressive towards humans, but if provoked, they can bite and sting. This can cause you to have a rather painful experience, but it will not cause any lasting effects. They are very aggressive towards other ants species and will attack if they feel that their colony is in immediate danger.
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Homemade Ant Spray Remedy
What kills carpenter ants and other types of annoying ant species? Soap suds and oil from this recipe enter the ants exoskeleton making them unable to move. The soap suds and oil suffocate the ants.
Homemade Ant Spray Remedy Recipe
- ½ teaspoon liquid dish soap
- 1 ½ tablespoon canola oil
- 1-quart water
Add all three ingredients to a spray bottle and shake to mix. Spray liberally on ant trails and pour directly into their nests.
Pavement Ant Inspection To Locate Trails Or Colonies
- In order to properly bait with the recommended ant baits, it is necessary to put the bait out near their colonies or trails.
- Although you may observe these Pavement Ants trailing during the day, most observation will occur at night.
- Pavement Ants will displace soil around concrete objects such as sidewalks, patios, driveways, curbs, etc. This displaced loose soil may be seen along the cracks or joints in the sidewalks or driveways.
- Look for colonies around the foundations of your home and underneath brick patios. Also inspect aroundlogs or large rocks.
- Inside, look around baseboards, plumbing, sinks, toilets, and along the edges of carpets. They also may be found in the insulation of attics and wall voids.
- Foraging Pavement ants that are foraging are active near door frames and on the floor. During the warming spring months, winged females and males are swarming inside and become trapped near a window, near the sunlight.
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