Bathroom Ants

 

Often I hear about dead ants in the bathroom, usually found in the morning. Likely this time of year, those ants are Pharaohs ants. These guys can live in the walls of your house for years undetected. They will venture outside in the heat of the summer but prefer the stability of a warm house. These ants are the pickiest of all ants. If it’s too cold, they move location in the walls, if it’s becomes too hot they move again, if it’s too wet or too dry, they move again. They travel in wall voids along plumbing and wiring ducts, and pop up out in the most unlikely places, like kitchen countertops and electrical outlets. The dead ants in the bathroom are a usually a result of ants looking for water and picking up bath and cleaning products on their bodies. Soaps, shampoos, conditioners and products used to clean the bathroom act as surfactant; compounds that lower the surface tension between two liquids, a gas and a liquid, or a liquid and a solid, making them excellent detergents and lathering agents. Ironically, the surfactant breaks down the waxy cuticle on the ant’s exoskeleton causing the ants to dehydrate and die right there on your bathroom floor.

gogreenpestcontrol.ca Ladner Tsawwassen Delta B.C. Randy Bilesky

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bathroom-ants-randy-bilesky/?published=t

http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-bathroom-ants-1.23150034

 

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