Many ant species build their nests outdoors and become a nuisance when they forage for food inside your home.
Once they discover a good food source, they may continue to come inside, collect their food and leave to take the food back to their nest – which can often be found close to the house under paving, patios, in walls or in plant pots or lawns.
According to the Good Housekeeping Institute Team, the ants crawling across your worktops are most likely to be the black garden art, and you can expect to see them between April and August.
Flying ants can be a problem in late July and August, as these are the reproductive males and females looking for a new nest site.
While ants pose no threat to human’s health, they can certainly be a nuisance – but there are some simple steps you can follow to push them out your home.
To prevent them from entering in the first place, make sure to keep your work surfaces and floors clean and free from stickiness.
Clean up spills and store opened food and drinks in the fridge.
If ants become a problem indoors, Brits could use insecticidal sprays and gels around door thresholds, at the junction between walls and foors/surfaces and along windowsills.
If there’s a large number of the pesky creatures the advice is to follow the line of ants back to the nest entrance and pour a kettleful of boiling water over it as an emergency measure – until you can get some insecticidal ant powder.
The British Pest Control Association says some centrally heated blocks of flats may be troubled by the much smaller tropical Pharaoh’s ant which prefers protein to sweet foods and has multiple nests within the building structure.
Ghost Ants are also becoming more common in heated buildings. These are a similar size to Pharaoh’s ants and are pale coloured with a dark thorax and head.
Control of these types must be left to professional operators.
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