Have you ever been relaxing in your home with your barefoot on your cozy carpet then felt the sting or bite of an ant?
And after a closer look, you are shocked to see dozens of ants scavenging for food in your carpet.
Immediately, your thoughts go from – where are the ants coming from? To – how do I get ants off my carpet?
Ants can take any environment by surprise. All they need is some food remnants or particles in the carpet, and they will infest the surface in no time.
Ant can quickly become a severe infestation problem. You should not see ant infestations as ordinary, and it needs a resolution as soon as possible.
Ants have the potential to multiply and spread to other parts of the house. It’s dangerous to leave ants roaming for too long.
How to get rid of ants in the carpet?
By now, it’s hardly possible to come across anyone who cannot identify an ant. Most times, these insects scamper around in rows throughout your house or garden.
With the exceeding growth rate in the number of ants that already exist on the planet, leaving them to run unchecked can become dangerous.
There are various species of ants, and many people are unaware of the harm these insects can cause.
Although it rarely happens that ants build up a colony in your carpet, but if it happens, it’s even tougher to remove ants.
It’s important to note that they can begin to move to other furniture in your home from taking refuge in your carpet.
More ants will mean that your entire house will be covered with ants, and there is almost nothing you can do about it at this point.
Every ant roaming around your home is a potential danger, especially when they start breeding in your carpet.
Carpet fibers have thin gaps that create the perfect hideaway spot. Ants also like to be in those hard-to-reach and dark places in the home.
These spots keep them safe and help them breed more. This is why it can be a tedious task to get ants off your carpet.
You need to be extra careful and ensure you take all necessary precautions to prevent them from moving from one spot to the other.
Why you do have an ant infestation in your carpet
It’s the food particles, sugary snacks, or spilled drinks on your carpet that can attract ants. These spots could be from spills or leaks from your ceiling, the walls, or a pipe somewhere in your flooring.
The material build-up of the carpet is heavy and would require proper drying after cleaning. If not, it can lead to attracts ants and lead to an infestation.
Will ants live in carpets?
Ants don’t share the same attraction to your carpet as you. They do not eat carpets. It’s the sweet or wet spots that can attract ants to your carpet.
Since the carpet does not attract ants, you don’t have to worry about ants laying eggs or building a home on your carpet.
Most activities related to building a colony are for the queen to perform in an outside nest, not the regular carpenter ants you may find around.
It’s the carpenter ants crawling and creating trails back and forth to colonies you may worry about. They are there to gather food leftovers and moisture in your carpet, especially if wood flooring underneath your carpet.
It’s even an advantage to identify your ants and tell the differences between the sugar ants, carpenter ants, fire ants, and the others.
The tiny black ants are likely odorous house ants that are most likely after the food, water, or sugar they find in your house. Those larger and blackish ones are probably carpenter ants that are attracted.
Although there are many effective ways to kill ants in your carpet, we would give a step-by-step guide combining methods that produce more efficient results.
Step 1: Look for food or moisture
Most of the time, the attraction of ants to your carpet is related to food or moisture. Every little bread crumb or drop of sugar can attract ants. This is the reason why you should avoid eating or drinking on your carpet.
Or, in your case, sweep, mop, and vacuum immediately you find food particles or wet spots on your carpet. During the inspection, you may want to go a step further and lift your carpet.
Step 2: Vacuum your carpet
We may already be used to running your vacuum over the carpet every week. However, ants can form a colony in no time if they find good food or water source. With this happening, you should double your vacuuming effort and do it more frequently.
Once you find ants in your carpet close to any food source, vacuum the environment with strong bristles to ensure you get rid of all the ants and food particles.
Step 3: Use ant bait
One excellent way of dealing with ant invasion is using ant bait. The ant baits attract the ants. Then the ants carry the bait to the colony or ant nest and cause the slow-acting poison to eradicate them.
Some effective ant baits include gel ant baits, granule ant baits, and liquid ant baits.
Step 4: Consider applying pesticides
Using pesticides or ant carpet powder is an alternative to ant baits. It can be in liquid or powder form. Other products that can actively kill ants include cimex dust, food-degrade diatomaceous earth, baking soda, boric acid, ant spray, and exterior sprays.
This method is perfect against ants, but it also kills spiders and a wide variety of insects.
Once the insects crawl through the product, it cuts the waxy exteriors of their bodies and leads to their dehydration in a few hours. The product can also be vacuumed up and may not require immediate contact to start killing ants.
How do I get rid of ants in my carpet naturally?
Like we mentioned above, you should be careful while getting rid of ants on your carpet. As effective as the spray or liquid insecticides, using these products produces poisonous fumes that affect the ants’ digestive systems.
However, when they are released, it can cause irritations to the kids or pets in your home.
For this reason, most people prefer to go for more natural products that you usually find in your home for their wide range of use, like borax, diatomaceous earth, baking soda, ant carpet powder, and vinegar.
These home remedies can be in the form of sprays or powders. You use them by direct application on the carpet or flooring where you notice all the ants gathering.
Although it may take up to 24 hours to show results, they work like magic. Immediately you have gotten rid of all the dead ants; you should vacuum the environment thoroughly to keep it clean.
Other natural pest control that can repel ants you can think of include peppermint, boric acid, lemon juice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, or black pepper.
Will baking soda kill ants in the carpet?
It’s somewhat unbelievable to think of an item you will find in your kitchen pantry as an effective ant killer. However, even though baking soda is non-toxic, it’s one of the most all-natural ways to kill all the ants on the carpet.
To make a baking soda ant killer, you only need to mix equal parts sugar and baking soda in a spray bottle and sprinkle the mixture across the carpet’s surface. The mix, in this case, kills ants when the sugar attracts ants while the baking soda kills ants.
When the ants ingest the baking soda, it causes their stomach to explode. This product may not be equally effective on pests like bed bugs, and there is no scientific evidence to validate this method.
However, most DIYers who use baking soda have boasted of excellent results at killing more ants.
Can you vacuum ants out of the carpet?
To ensure the ants, you eliminate from your carpet never return, you need to vacuum more often. The vacuum cleaner is likely the most effective device you can use to kill ants on your carpets without causing tough stains from chemicals to your carpet.
If you are going for one, you should buy a high-powered vacuum cleaner. This ensures the device can do more than just clean the surface; it also needs to kill ants.
Also, to ensure your vacuum cleaner gets all the harmful substances and avoids pollutants, use one that has a HEPA filter installed.
From applying baking soda, and every other option to remove ants from the carpet, vacuuming is an excellent option to suck ants and every other insect in your carpet.
If you don’t already, ensure you vacuum at least once a day to remove ants from your environment.
Wrap-Up
It’s an uncomfortable situation to notice ants in your carpets, especially if you are one of us that find pleasure in the fantastic feel of the surface. Before getting rid of this ant infestation, your first move should be eradicating the cause of the problem.
In conclusion, ants do not infest carpets for the lovely texture. It’s the moisture or food in the carpet that can attract ants. You can use ant baits, apply pesticides, and vacuum. Asides from these, there are a few natural substances you can apply to do the same tasks. These include baking soda, borax, ant spray, Diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and vinegar.
Regular vacuuming is still one of the ways to remove ants and ensure there is no food and spills leftovers on your carpet. In the long run, vacuuming helps prevent ants from creating a harbor in your carpet or even coming inside the home in the first place.