Help! There Are Ants Under My Carpet!

If you’ve ever walked across your floor only to find yourself getting stung by ants along the way, you aren’t alone. It sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it? Finding yourself getting stung by ants in your own home. At first you might think, hey, it’s okay. It’s just one or two ants, right? So then you ignore the problem. But then, the next time you walk across your floor again, you get stung once more! So then you investigate… you take a really close look… you maybe lift the corner of the carpet a little. And then you find the biggest ant infestation under carpet that you have ever seen.

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Terro Liquid Ant Bait T300 Check Price
PIC Home Plus
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When that moment happened to me, my heart leapt to my throat and it was all I could do not to scream. My heart was racing as I felt imaginary ants crawling under my skin. In my mind, these little ants were suddenly all over me! In a blind panic, I ran out of the room and took a shower to get the feeling of ants off of me. In there, I began to hatch a plan of how I was going to deal with these ants.

Finding an ant infestation under carpet is not a small thing – after all, you can’t simply pull up your whole carpet to get rid of them. Many people get stumped about this problem; I know I was. It took me a while to come up with ways to deal with these pesky little critters, and I had to check the internet for ideas too. So if you’re having the same problem that I did not too long ago, take a deep breath and relax. I’m here to help!

Why Are There Ants Under My Carpet?

There are many reasons why ants could be infesting your house, and I’ll discuss these reasons with you right now. First, let’s talk about one of the main and most obvious reasons: leaving food out.

Leaving food out

Unfortunately, leaving food outside of the fridge, or leaving opened containers of food without clipping or sealing them shut, can really invite ants. In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found that ants had eaten through the bags of chips that I had clipped shut. Yep, I unclipped the bag and started eating the chips inside only to find out I was eating ants too. That was a truly disgusting moment during the worst ant invasion I’d ever had. Yes, it was shortly after this that I found the ant infestation under carpet.

It’s important not to leave the ants any opportunity to get to food at all. This is because any food left out, especially during swarming season, will get these critters coming to your home in droves. The same can be said about food left outside the home such as perhaps, for example, food for your pets.

Moisture and wood

One more reason you may find an ant infestation under carpet is because many types of ants are attracted to moisture and decaying wood. If you have wood under your floor, or if you are struggling with water leaks in your pipes, chances are you will eventually get some sort of infestation. It doesn’t just have to be ants too – sometimes you may also get fungus, or even cockroaches. This is why it’s so important that you make sure your home is properly maintained as much as possible. Again, you will always want to avoid any sort of infestation in any situation. That way you won’t make the same mistake as me. I ended up having to tear up my carpets to fix everything!

How Do I Get Rid of Ant Infestation Under Carpet?

Don’t worry! I had to pull up my carpeting to get rid of my ant infestation. And then on top of that I had to fix some parts of my floor too. But just because I had to do it, doesn’t mean that you will have to as well.

I found my ant infestation when it had already grown too large for me to contain on my own. I tried plenty of methods that worked temporarily, but eventually the ants simply came back. You see, when I first started noticing ants, I simply lived around them. I started putting my food in airtight containers. I didn’t leave food out. I ignored the little ants that were walking around because I figured hey, if they can’t get to my food, they’ll eventually be gone. Big. Mistake.

My ant infestation under carpet grew because I only treated the symptoms of the invasion – not the root cause. Had I chosen to look for the colony’s nest instead, I probably would’ve never had my problem become as bad as it did. So please don’t be like me. When you start seeing the ants, please employ one of the below methods to take care of them! You can also hire an exterminator if you want to do it the easiest way.

Borax + Vacuum

One of the best ways to get rid of ants under your carpet is to sprinkle boric acid (powder) all over your carpet. Make sure it really gets in there and all around. Crush any larger particulates so it settles into your carpet. Do this in the evening so that you can leave the boric acid powder in overnight. If you cannot leave it that long, try to leave it at least a couple hours. Then, fire up the vacuum and make sure you get everything! Suck up all of the borax and the ants that have probably died along with it. Do make sure that you get everything to the best of your capabilities.

This may not be the best option if you have pets or small children around. In that case, you may want to look at the other options below.

Check Your House Plants

Not a lot of people realize that they can bring in ants from outside when they bring in indoor plants. This is what ended up being the main culprit of my infestation, to be honest. I would water my plant only a little at a time, until one day I accidentally poured too much water, The next thing I knew, ants were coming out of the pot in what seemed like thousands! That had to be one of the most terrifying things I had ever experienced. I immediately picked up the pot, my skin crawling, before I took it outside. I decided the plant was a write off and left it in the trash.

Ant Bait

One thing that can really help to lessen and even eliminate an entire colony of ants is ant bait. When I had my particularly bad ant infestation under carpet, one thing that I found truly helped me was ant bait. There are some types of bait that are available these days that can really kill entire colonies of ants. I’ll recommend a couple that really helped my situation. But first, let’s talk about how these products work.

When you first begin to use liquid ant baits, you will initially start to see more ants. Don’t panic like I did; this is completely normal and is actually exactly how this product should work. Basically, the scout ants will find the bait that you have set out. And then, they will head back to the nest while leaving that pheromone trail behind so that worker ants can go back. The worker ants then go for the bait, since there is a whole new food supply to take from.

Once the worker ants begin taking back some of the contents of this liquid ant bait, the main ingredient (active) in the formula will begin to kill the ants. Borax is basically the backbone of ant baits. Ants, being communal in nature as they are, will share everything. Eventually they’ll share the bait to most if not all of their community. Borax begins to slowly kill the ants by interfering with their digestive systems. Slowly, they all begin to die. It’s important that they are dying slowly, because then you know that the ants will make several trips to the bait.

Now let’s talk about my recommendations!

Terro Liquid Ant Bait T300

I bought a box of this product to give it a try. I mean, my situation dealing with ants was already so bad that I was willing to try just about anything. Terro Liquid Ant Baits, the T300 version, came in an orange box that had 6 ready-to-use containers. All I had to do was leave the baits out around my home and the ants started going over to them. Terro claims to kill not just the ants that you can see, but also the ones that you don’t. Because of this, you can trust that this product will kill the ants in the nest. Eventually, you will be able to eliminate the entire colony infesting your carpet.

Terro’s liquid baits basically come in sealed plastic containers. The way. They are sealed allows the product inside to remain fresh until they are finally ready to use. So if you don’t feel like you need to use all six at once, you can just keep the rest of them under your kitchen sink (or wherever else you want to store ‘em). Then, when you’re ready to use them, you can simply take them out.

PROS

✔️Stays fresh as long as it’s sealed, lets you keep some for future use
✔️Effective at decimating ant colonies
✔️Affordable
✔️Comes in convenient packages of six

CONS
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❌Container is not secure enough to prevent pets and small children from getting into them
❌Takes some time to work and is not an instant solution
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Summary:

If you want an easy but effective way to get rid of ant infestation under carpet, this product is an excellent choice. It will take care of the entire colony, too.

PIC Home Plus Ant Killer in Child Resistant Packaging

ant infestation under carpet

This product is more affordable and comes in packaging that small children and perhaps even pets cannot get into. If you have toddlers around, or even children up to the age of five or six, this may be the better option for you. PIC is sold in packages of 8. Each bait is in a canister that you can set out for the forager ants to find. Then, the worker ants will follow and take the bait back. To the colony.

There are many positive reviews of this product online, proving that it is an effective choice. Many people love them fact that it is so affordable, thereby making it much more accessible to even those who are struggling with finances.

Some people claim that they have begun to see effects with this product as soon as 2 days after starting to use it. Others, on the other hand, stated that it took them a week or so to realize that the ants were gone. Therefore, your mileage may vary.

PROS

✔️Really quite affordable for pack of 12
✔️Proven effective
✔️Plenty of positive feedback and reviews
✔️Safe for small children due to child resistant packaging

CONS
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❌Time for it to become effective is not guaranteed, your mileage may vary
.

Summary:

This product literally does the same as the product above. However, it is affordable, and also safe for your young children. We recommend this if you have small children that you are worrying about.

 Conclusion

Staying vigilant is half the battle when fighting ant infestations. The best thing that you can possibly do is to make sure that the ants never make it into your home in the first place. If you see lone ants walking around, kill them then destroy their pheromone trails. You want to be sure that you nip a possible invasion in the bud. Don’t be like me; I messed up and so I had to really pay a price to get the ants out of my home.

And of course, don’t forget that you shouldn’t leave any food out as much as possible. This lessens the chances that forager ants will find their way into your home and then summon the cavalry later.

I hope that my little stories about ants attacking me and my home was relatable to you. I also hope that you are able to get the ants out of your home with the methods I just provided. In the end, ant infestation under carpet are not impossible to deal with – so just relax. Now, you know what to do!