Ant prevention

Ant prevention refers to non chemical changes you can make to your home and its environment to make your home less attractive to ants. Ant prevention is the most green thing you can do to get rid of ants.

Nothing can make your home completely unattractive, see ANT BASICS, but the following steps can make your home less ant friendly and make control efforts more effective.

Ant repellents

There is nothing you can plant next to your home that makes your home less attractive to ants but how you manage your exterior vegetation can have a huge impact. Vegetation against your structure increases the moisture in your home and allows many avenues of contact for ants and other insects.

Repel ants

Vegetation

There should be no tree limbs, vines, ivy, or shrubs which contact eaves roof or upper siding. A few inches of clearance will do, but very few people can stay on top of exterior vegetation and keep it trimmed away on a constant basis. Consider trimming vegetation in such a way so that it will never grow back. Ants eat other insects and aphid secretions. Contacting vegetation allows easy access to nearby food sources and avenues off your home that bypass treatments applied at the base. Making your home home hard to access will go a long way toward repeling ants.

In the same way, shrubs, tall grass, ivy, and other vegetation should be kept away from your siding and any attached decks. Keeping the vegetation away will make your home drier. Anything which makes your home drier is good. Also, keeping the vegetation away will make it easier to see anything crawling in or out. Keeping the vegetation away will make it harder for ants to get out to a food source. If you have grass or other vegetation which grows up against your deck or siding, consider installing a gravel bed around its exterior.

Siding and deck clearance

There should be a minimum 4 to 6 inch of clear visible concrete between the base of your siding and the soil beneath it. The siding of your home should not contact any substance - no landscaping materials- including beauty bark, play chips, sand, gravel, and or leaf debris. This includes all types of siding, including concrete, vinyl, brick, and wood.

Many of todays decks are made of, at least partially, chemically treated rot resistant wood. If you ever read the maufacturers installation instructions you would understand that almost no one installs these materials properly. The chemical treatment in these materials does not penetrate much beyond the outer layer. Ants do not eat wood, they only tear it apart for nesting purposes - so they do not swallow or consume the chemicals in these materials in any great amount - meaning these materials are not ant proof.

Wooden landscaping

Many species of ants nest in wet and or decaying wood. Using wooden landscaping such as cherry toned timbers, treated lumber, or rarilroad ties in your landscaping is like installing incubators for ant populations that may later move into your home.

Moisture conditions

Keep an eye out for anything else that makes your home damp. Keep your gutters clean, makes sure downspouts drain away from your home. Make sure your sub area is well ventilated and your bathroom well caulked.