When I was a kid, my mom seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to prevent ants from entering our home. I grew up in the south east, and the warm summers and humidity are apparently a huge breeding ground for these creatures. I remember how she would freak when she discovered even one of these lone creatures in her house. It didn’t make sense to me back then, probably because she was so good at keeping them out of the house, but I now understand far too well now why she was so intent at keeping ants out of the home.
Did you know that ants communicate using chemicals? I don’t know that I understand the communication process well enough to explain it, but I know that ants find their way around by following a chemical trail. When my mom found that single ant, she would dismantle the house and clean every square inch and surface in the area where she found the ant. This chemical trail was the reason. Ants leave these chemical trails so that they can determine where they have been. A single ant will wander around lost, searching for the thread of one of these chemical trails. The entire time it is searching, however, it is marking where it has been. If this ant was in your house because there was something yummy, then you are in trouble. He will eventually find his way back to the mound. There, with a couple hundred thousand of his closest friends he will start back on the trail to your house. That is, after all, where the picnic is, right?
I now understand why, in my case not my mom’s, I saw an ant one day, and the next day I had ants everywhere.
There is a happy side to this story. A friend of mine recommended that I try the Riddex Pulse. The Riddex Pulse works by emitting electro-magnetic waves that interfere with the nervous systems of ants. It actually works on ants, roaches, rodents, and many other unmentionables. Now that I have installed the Riddex Pulse in my home, the ants refuse to follow their chemical trail back into my house. This is good for me, because I can’t say I know exactly where they were coming in. I don’t know how my mom did it. Man she was good!
