Ant Control in Melbourne

Ants are awesome. Just not inside your home.

Ants are among Australia’s most amazing natural wonders, but you perhaps know them as the efficient armies that raid your kitchen and prove to be an ineradicable pest. So, let’s know our enemy before we get to the most effective pest control methods.

Four ant species are among the most common pests in the Melbourne region:
1. Brown Ants (Monomorium pharaonis) are the tiny brown ones that can seem to appear out of nowhere and take over your house. They are rather tough to eradicate.
2. Black ones (either Camponotus (the big ones) or Ochetellus (small ones)) love houses. They like nesting in empty spaces in walls or roofs.
3. Coastal Brown (Pheidole megacephala) , or bigheaded ants are a super-invasive species, and are a tough customer for removal.
4. Argentine ants (Linepithema species) , are small brown ants that form one of the world’s most invasive species. While preferring to stay underground in cooler months, they swarm over everything in summers - lawns, potted plants, rubbish bins, bathrooms, you name it.

Possible Damages

1. Ants can nest easily in cracks in walls, air-conditioning or heating ducts, roof spaces or in electrical boxes. They can claw holes in A/C ducts, electrical wiring, appliance cables, telephone wires etc
2. Ants can contaminate food containers, baby bottles, bags of flour etc, apart from leaving behind the germs they’ve picked up from elsewhere. Ant-infested food can only be thrown away.
3. While these insects aren’t vectors of any major diseases, they can nevertheless be carriers of various germs because of their foraging habits.
4. Ants nesting in gardens and under your house cause soil subsidence.
5. While most pest ants aren’t biters, imported fire ones (Solenopsis invicta) don’t hesitate at all, causing painful stings that can trigger allergies including asthma.
6. Finally, the presence of such creatures in your house triggers a drastic drop in property value.

Signs of Ant Infestation

1. Live ants in your home aren’t guests for a day. Look for cracks or holes where they’re coming from - their nest is probably not far away.
2. Ant lines mean that the ants intend to stay and have laid down pheromone trails to guide their nestmates to a food source, usually your pantry.
3. Ant nests look like a small pile of soil or dirt, and are easy to spot. But if made in wall cracks or other places, it becomes difficult to spot.

Preventing Ant Infestations

You must be constantly vigilant as these insects are the most persistent species on the planet.

1. Ensure all food in the house is in airtight containers. The smallest of gaps is enough for ants to penetrate.
2. Repack uneaten food, including pets’ food.
3. Clean spilt food or drink immediately.
4. Keep vegetation around the premises trimmed, so they don’t give these insects bridges to get inside.
5. Rinse out cans or bottles destined for recycling.
6. Seal cracks around doors and windows, and keep gutters, ducts and pipes unclogged.

Effective ant Control and Removal

1. DIY methods might work if your infestation is small. If it shows no sign of abating, call a professional pest control service. Here’s why:
2. A pest control service provider can identify the source of infestation (they know where to look), the faults in your building construction along with their species that is infesting.
3. Professional pest controllers use specialised equipment to get to parts of your structure that’s normally inaccessible.
4. Pest control service providers deploy a variety of products and methods that ensure complete removal of ants, as well as preventing them from re-entry.

Give us a Call

When you hire Protech Pest Control, we first inspect your house and its surroundings for the source of infestation. We will then uproot it with effective and eco-friendly pesticides, alongside eliminating foraging ants with effective baits.

Call us from anywhere in Melbourne on 1300 780 980