Ants sometimes appear in the strangest places in a home, such as the dishwasher. This is a particularly unsettling place because the dishwasher is an appliance you trust to get your dishes and utensils clean enough to eat safely.
From the ant experts at Precise Termite & Pest Control, here is some information about why ants get into dishwashers and what you can do to get rid of them here.
What Draws Ants to Dishwashers?
You might think that a dishwasher is the last place an ant would want to live, especially with all that hot, flowing water on a regular basis. However, dishwashers are attractive to ants because of all the food residue left behind on the dishes you put inside them. Many people leave dirty dishes sitting in the dishwasher for a few days before running it. This is a great opportunity for ants to enter and feast on your leftovers.
Ants can easily hide in the cracks of a dishwasher to avoid drowning or being swept down the drain. Even modern dishwashers have various cracks and openings that offer easy entry points for tiny ants. Common entry points for ants in a dishwasher include side vents, gaps behind the dishwasher, the lower kick plate, and the area where the plumbing connects to the hole in the appliance.
Getting Rid of Dishwasher Ants
If you have an ants-in-dishwasher problem, it’s not enough to simply run the appliance on a hot cycle and assume they all died. Some DIY enthusiasts have tried placing delayed ant lures near dishwashers to poison ants that come into them and then spread the poison through the rest of the colony. Another option is to pour a cup of vinegar combined with boric acid down the dishwasher’s drain to reduce the smell of food residue that attracts ants. You can also scrub the dishwasher with soap and water to clean up food residue, check for leaks around the machine, apply diatomaceous earth around the dishwasher, or place ant bait stations underneath and around it to target the ant colony.
Professional Help for Ants in a Dishwasher
However, one consideration to keep in mind is that you don’t want poisonous substances anywhere near the cups, bowls, plates, and utensils that you will soon be eating with. Never spray pesticides inside a dishwasher because you could unintentionally poison yourself and your family while trying to get an ant problem under control.
The safest and most effective solution is to call Precise Termite & Pest Control for professional help with your ants in dishwasher issue. Ants common to Northern New Jersey are our specialty and what our trained exterminators excel at handling every day. From our experience, it is likely that you have ants in more than just your dishwasher if you find them here, so you may have a more extensive infestation problem on your hands than you even realize.
When you hire us to get the job done right, we will not only get rid of ants in your dishwasher but also inspect other possible entry points around your home and take preventative measures to ensure they won’t come back. For your free ant inspection, please call us today at 866-971-2847 or contact us online. It’s best to reach out to us at the first sign of ant activity so that we can address the infestation early on and prevent it from spreading elsewhere in your home.