Ants In Your Food? How To Remove Them Safely

Posted on: 28 July 2020

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If you have ants in your food, it can be very stressful. The last thing you want to do is toss all of your food, unfortunately, this is what you're probably going to have to do with at least some of it. You can safely remove ants from your food, pantry, and your home. Read on for helpful information to use as a guide.

Start Removing The Food 

To start, take the food from your pantry, inspecting it to see if the ants are actually inside the packaging. If it's an open box product such as cereal or uncooked noodles, you most likely have ants inside and they should be tossed. If they are just crawling on a sealed container such as peanut butter, look to see if there are any ants inside. If there isn't any inside, keep the food product. Take a close look at everything you remove to see what should be tossed and what you should just clean up.

Kill Ants You See

Ants you see on the food you are keeping should be killed and wiped off of the food item. You can use a damp cloth with soap and water. The soap will help kill the ants and can help clean off the food product as well. Do this for every food item in your pantry or cabinet that had ants on them. 

Spray The Pantry

Once all of the food is removed from the pantry or cabinet, you should wipe down the pantry shelves or the cabinet shelves with soap and water. Then use a commercial spray to spray the area to prevent more ants from returning. Wait a few days before you put the food products back into their usual spot in the pantry/cabinet to be sure you got rid of the ants.

Set Baits

Keep ant baits in the cabinet or pantry to trap and kill any ants that attempt their way into these areas again. You can use small plastic baits that are enclosed to trap and kill ants. You can find these baits at your local hardware store, or at a big box store. Replace the baits every three months.

Keep ants out of your pantry by keeping your pantry tidy, wiping down pantry items such as bottles of oil, syrup, and peanut butter containers that can attract these pests. If you have a pest problem, whether its ants or some other type of pest, call a pest control company for help getting rid of them.

To learn more about ant removal, feel free to reach out to pest control companies to learn more.