What Attracts Ants to Your Home?

Summer comes around, and the ants are out in full force. You see them swarming everything, from discarded food to puddles of discarded beverages. Something is attracting these ants. What is it? What attracts ants?

Can Water Attract Ants?

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Clik here to view.Ants require water for survival, but it won’t outright attract them. Their food sources often contain enough water to sustain them. With that said, if you live in a dry climate, ants might infest your home to find some supplementary water, since their food sources might not be enough. In addition, damp wood in your home can attract carpenter ants. If there’s just a puddle of water on a bench, or something like that, you don’t need to worry about ants coming into your home just for that.

Are Ants Attracted to Light?

A number of ant species are blind, so light shouldn’t attract them. Even for the ones that aren’t blind, there is no evidence that light draws them to a location. If you ever see a swarm of ants in your home and it seems they’re attracted to the light, there’s probably a different factor at play, such as mating season. The light is inconsequential.

Does Salt Attract Ants?

Salt is a necessity to one’s diet if they want their body to work properly, but ants often don’t have reliable access to salt. While some species are able to get their salt from an ocean, or even from eating insects, that isn’t an option for all species of ants. With that being the case, salt will indeed attract ants.

Will Ants Eat Artificial Sweetener?

Ants require a balanced diet of sorts. They need proteins, fats, and, of course, carbs. Sugar, being high in carbohydrates, attracts ants to foods with sugar in them, but what about artificial sweeteners like aspartame? Ants are not attracted to artificial sweeteners because they do not have the carbs the ants are looking for. You read some claims that while these sweeteners do not attract ants, they are viable to use as an ant poison. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Studies have shown artificial sweeteners do not kill ants.

Does Urine Attract Ants?

This might sound like an odd thing to consider, but ants can, in fact, be attracted to urine. Albeit, only with in one specific circumstance, urine from someone with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a genetic disorder where your body doesn’t produce enough insulin, leading to high blood sugar. The high amount of sugar in your blood will eventually harm different parts of your body, including the parts which regulate the sugar levels of your urine: the kidneys. When they are damaged, they cannot regulate the glucose levels, and your urine will be high in sugar content. Your urine’s glucose levels will attract ants.

Maybe you’ve taken all the steps you can think of to prevent an ant infestation, but ants keep getting into your home. Contact a Tulsa pest management service to see if one of their trained professionals can find and eliminate the source of the problem.

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