The world is changing, and everyone seems to be talking about the “new normal”. Well, in these transient times, it seems like outdoor activities are becoming all the rage in our North Dallas community, aren’t they? Getting out of the house and enjoying the fresh outdoors is such a nice change of pace from our concrete jungle, it makes us wonder why we ever got away from the outdoors in the first place.
Then we look down at our feet during a walk…we look at our kids’ hands as they play on the playground, we look at our food during a picnic…and what do we see? Fire ants. Crawling up our shoes, crawling on our children, and all over our picnic baskets. We understand they’re a risk out in nature; there’s not much we can do to alleviate that worry. However, we definitely don’t want to worry about fire ants in our house.
Fire Ant Dangers
In North Dallas, fire ants are of the most common pests that residents have to deal with. How do you know if they’re on your property? (First of all, they probably are). You may notice their large nests that build up like mounds in your yard or near the sidewalk. The ants themselves are bright red in color and one of the smaller species of ants. With a noticeable stinger between the back two legs, fire ants impose an intimidating figure for such a small pest. Maybe that’s because their sting can be so painful (even though many people may refer to it as a bite).
To couple with their painful stings, fire ants are also very territorial. They’ll protect their large mound nests to the death and even call other ants for help when attacked. That’s right. Fire ants can produce a chemical when in distress that will draw other ants to their location. This creates the potential for multiple attacks and multiple stings, resulting in skin irritations, red welts, and worse. It might be a rare occurrence, but many people even suffer from anaphylactic shock when they are stung by a fire ant, even just once. Their odds increase exponentially when stung by a swarm of angry ants.
Preventing Painful Pest Infestation
Lean in close for this part because there are a lot of lessons to learn here. Lesson number one: don’t trust the Internet. While you might be able to find a ton of useful “life hacks” on apps like Tik Tok, when it comes to risking your safety, home remedies are rarely a good idea. The Internet will tell you to splash boiling water in a fire ant mound, but if you dig long enough, you’ll find the videos of people burning themselves with the splash. Plus, this only kills a little over half the ants. Those left alive will just find another colony nearby.
Next up on the list of solutions to debunk is dish soap spray. This one is just straight-up false. Dish soap has very little effect on the ants. If you want to actually kill the ants, you should use gasoline. And if you want to kill your whole yard, you should use gasoline. And if you want to risk burning yourself…use gasoline. (You see the point, right? Don’t use gasoline).
Lesson number two: home remedies are dangerous, ineffective, or both. The only true way to get rid of fire ants and keep them away is with professional assistance from DANCAN Pest Control. And that’s totally fine because DANCAN has the on-going pest support you need at the affordable prices you want.