Outdoor Ant Control

Outdoor Ant Control

Ants outside the home should be addressed as soon as possible to avoid the ants entering your home, to keep your yard ant free, and to protect people and animals from being bitten.

1. Prepare Your Property for Treatment

Before you treat your property, you must make the property less attractive to ants. Ants are attracted to moisture and food, which they need to live, and they seek shelter to harbor in. By removing these three elements from your property, ants will be less likely to stay on your property.

• To prevent ants from using trees and foliage to reach your home and gain access to it, trim back trees and shrubs so that the branches and foliage do not touch your home. This will also help avoid the need for pesticide applications.
• Eliminate moist shady areas where ants like to nest by trimming bushes and shrubs up from the ground so you can see beneath them.
• Create a "dry zone" or an area devoid of any landscape material, that ants are likely to avoid by raking mulch, pine straw or other landscape bedding at least 6 inches from the foundation.
• To reduce moisture retention and discourage nest building, turn mulch or other bedding material every couple of weeks.
• Insects and other household pests are known to live in gutters and downspouts, so clean these out frequently.
• Keep lawn short, mowing as often as necessary.
• To eliminate potential harborages for a wide variety of insects and pests, remove grass clippings, leaf piles, stacked wood, and other lawn debris.
• If fruit trees are on the property, pick fruit from trees when ripe and pick up fallen fruit from the ground.
• Outdoor trash cans and dumpsters provide food and shelter for pests, so store them as far away from structure as possible and check for tight fitting lids.
• Wash out trash cans and dumpsters with an ammonia solution when needed.

2. TREAT – Outdoor Baiting and Spraying

We recommend using two types of products to treat for ants around your property, ant bait and non-repellant ant spray. Our Outdoor Ant Control Kit contains ant baits, non-repellant spray, and more to help make selecting the proper products easy. The Outdoor Ant Kit can be purchased here.

Spray for Ants Indoors

Use a hand pump sprayer or a backpack sprayer to apply your non-repellant ant spray. Mix an insecticide labeled for ants and outdoor use, such as Taurus SC, with water at mixing rates according to the label of the insecticide. Spray the following areas around your property:

• Around the foundation of your property, 1 foot up and 1 foot out around perimeter of your home or structure
• Around door and window frames
• Where utility cables and plumbing pipes enter your home
• Any other place where you have noticed ants crawling on your property

Do not spray insecticide across your grass in a broad spray and limit your application to once every 6 months or as frequently as the product label allows.

The insecticide will have a slow kill time. This allows ants time to come in contact with the insecticide and spread it to other ants within the colony.

Outdoor Ant Baiting

Granular ant bait and liquid ant bait should be used together to exterminate ants that are farther way from your structure and will not come in contact with the non-repellant ant spray insecticide.

Add granular ant bait, such as Maxforce Complete Granular Bait, and liquid ant bait, such as Maxforce Quantum Ant Bait, together in an ant bait station. Consult the label of your baits for the amount of bait to add to each station.

Place stations near areas where you are seeing high levels of ant activity. Check stations weekly are refill the bait as needed.

Consult our guide on How to Get Rid of Ants for further baiting instructions.