Seeing ants in your house but can’t figure out where they’re coming from? Did you know that ants can make their way inside even if you don’t have food? Find out why they invade your house even if it’s clean and tidy!

You clean your home day in and day out. There’s not a single bread crumb on the floor or food remnants on the kitchen counter. So why are there still so many ants in the house?

That’s a reasonable question. And the short answer is: There can be ants even when there’s no food around!

Besides food, ants also seek moisture, safety, and shelter in our homes.

While it’s true that the main reason ants enter homes is to look for food, this doesn’t mean there aren’t any other forces that can attract them to your home. Ants also need shelter, safety, and moisture.

Learning about these factors, why ants need them, and how they seek them out, can better prepare you to protect your home and increase your chances in a battle to get rid of ants.

Let’s look at the most common reasons why you will find ants in your home even if you’ve done an excellent job at keeping your home clean.

Ants Enter Homes to Seek Moisture

Sometimes ants are looking for water and not for food. If your house is humid, this likely to attract ants even if there’s no food in sight.

Ants love moisture. They drink water. Especially when it’s hot and dry outside, ants will undoubtedly try to sneak into your house to build a new nest.

Ants love moisture so much that there’s even a specific ant species that infests homes with an exceeding amount of humidity. Moisture ants, as they’re aptly called, are citronella-smelling ants that nest in high moisture places. Aside from their weirdly pleasant smell, you can identify them through their characteristically yellow workers. You can also see them nest outside houses, but they can also reside inside moist wood foundations.

So if you want your house to be more ant-proof, take steps to stop moisture accumulation. Here are some easy tips that you can follow to regulate the humidity inside your home.

And if you find yourself having an ant infestation in moisture-laden or damp sections of your home, read more about moisture ants for top tips and ways to tackle and eliminate them.

Ants Enter Homes to Look for Shelter

Oftentimes, insects just seek shelter out of the elements. It’s among their most basic necessities. Every living thing, including ants, needs to stay someplace where they can thrive and be safe.

If there are ants even if there’s no food and if you’re the type to clean often, then those pesky insects must have discovered your home a long time ago.

There are a lot of instances that can lead to ants entering your home to seek shelter. A common example would be a swarmer ant that found your house. Swarmers are reproductive members of an ant colony and their only main job is to fly off and build another nest when they reach maturity.

Swarmers can put up a new colony anywhere in your property. The bad news is that for a colony to afford swarmers, your yard or any other area in your house is most likely already infested with a large number of ants for years.

So if you’re seeing swarmers, you really need to tackle the ant infestation in your home ASAP because this is already an ant problem that has gotten out of hand! You can purchase a good ant spray to get rid of the ants that you can see outright, but you’ll also need professional ant exterminator services to get to the root of your ant problem.

Your ant problem could just be an unfortunate circumstance. It can be an offshoot of a destroyed nest, or rain or snow may have forced those ants to relocate into your house. Whatever the case, the bottom line is that ants will invade your house to find better nesting places when they need to. For this, you’ll need to contact a Beaverton ant pest control expert to help you eliminate ants permanently.

Ants Enter Homes to Hide From Bad Weather

If you have inclement weather happening, it’s quite common for ants to seek refuge in dry spaces.

Talking about rain and snow, a Stanford study on ant invasions has revealed that ants, particularly Argentine ants, invade homes during summer droughts and winter rainstorms.

They found that ants in the house are most likely due to cold, wet conditions outdoors and can also happen for the opposite reason during hot and dry months. So the weather plays a key role in infestations and why you have ants in the house.

Get Rid of Ants in the House for Good

Ants’ number one reason for invading human space is food, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only reason. You can find ants even if there’s no food in the house because they need shelter and moisture.

Now that you know this, you can take the necessary measures to keep your home ant-free. Continue keeping the house clean and also remove moisture sources. Seal up cracks, crevices, and other entry points. Be on guard for ants when the weather changes and contact a Beaverton ant pest control expert to help you eliminate ant infestations using only safe, organic and eco-friendly ant removal methods.