If you’re seeing ants in bedroom often or struggling to get rid of them, this in-depth guide will help you overcome the problem.
You’ll get to know a comprehensive solution to get rid of ants in the bedroom in 3 stages –
- Get rid of ants from their source.
- Kill ants hidden in your kitchen.
- Get rid of ants in the bedroom and secure your bedroom from future ant invasion.
Skip any of these three stages, and you’ll have ants reappearing in your bedroom.
Why?
It’s because these stages are interconnected. Focusing only on to get rid of bedroom ants isn’t a long term solution.
In this post, you’ll find proven steps that not only work like magic but also safe for you, your pets, and your children.
The best part?
They work against all types of ants that can be in your bedroom or home.
Let’s dive in!
3 Main Reasons For Ants In Bedroom
No hack will work against ants unless you know the reasons for ants in the bedroom.
Knowing the reasons will help you not only to get rid of ants. It’ll also ensure that you nip the ant problem at the bud.
There are three reasons for ants in the bedroom –
- There are ants in other rooms of your home.
- Your bedroom provides ants the hiding places that they need.
- Your home offers the ants the nutrition that makes them thrive.
Ants in the bedroom are a clear sign of an ant’s presence in other areas of your home.
You’ve been ignoring the signs of ants infestation for quite some time, and the infestation has spread to your bedroom.
In all honesty, ants prefer places like your kitchen, pantry storage, bathroom, and basement over your bedroom.
Why?
It’s because these places have enough moisture and food sources that ants need to survive.
Plus, there are enough nooks, corners, and gaps, for ants to build their nests and hide.
Ants in the bedroom can also mean that ants have multiplied in large numbers.
They’re now looking for new places to build their nests and hide.
Once ants are in your bedroom, they’d look for tiny cracks and gaps on the bedroom floor, furniture, and walls to hide and build nests.
Keep your closet, drawers, or wardrobe open for long, and ants can sneak in there as well.
But how can they survive without food?
There must be a food source in your bedroom that is sustaining the ants. Isn’t it?
In your bedroom, ants rely on two types of food sources.
The first is food droppings, liquid or solid, in your bedroom.
If you’ve got a habit of eating on the bed or in your bedroom often, then food crumbs falling off is expected.
Also, stains of coffee and other types of beverages on your bed, rug, and soft furnishings are food sources of ants.
The second is bugs inside your home.
Ants eat bugs like silverfish and roaches. They eat dead bugs too.
Another often overlooked but not surprising reason for ants in the home is termites. It’s because ants eat termites.
Ants will invade the termite colonies inside your home till they have their share of the meal.
But ants won’t wipe out the entire termite colony.
Surprisingly, if there’s no food source for ants in the bedroom, ants can carry the food to their nests that they’ve built in your bedroom.
So, it’s pretty common to see a trail of ants carrying food crumbs or dead bugs on their head to their nests.
Now that you know the reasons for ants in the bedroom, the obvious question is – where they come from.
Well, the following section answers your question.
Where Do Ants Come From In Your Home?
In houses, ants enter from the yard or garden.
They use the cracks and gaps around the home’s perimeter walls and on the windows and doors to sneak inside your home.
However, there can be ants in apartments, whether you live on the first floor or the fifteenth floor.
They can easily hitchhike, which means they can latch onto anything that you bring inside your home.
Pet foods, flowers, furniture, cardboard boxes, and even clothing pieces can be ant carriers.
Many a time, ants also invade apartments and houses from the drains of the bathroom and kitchen.
They can also enter through the gaps and cracks on doors and windows.
Once ants are inside your apartment, they can quickly spread by following the wires in the electrical outlets or sockets and plumbing lines.
If you don’t stop the ants at the right time, then ants can spread from one apartment to another, causing severe damages.
The trick that pros use to find out where ants are coming from is by following their trail.
It either leads to their nest or at the point of entry into your home.
Types Of Ants In Bedroom
There are over 1000 species of ants in North America.
But in US homes and bedroom, eight types of ants are common –
- Argentine Ants
- Carpenter Ants
- Crazy Ants
- Odorous House Ants
- Pavement Ants
- Red Fire Ants
- Sugar Ants
- Ghost Ants
In the US, ghost ants are on the south and the west coast. You can’t find them in the north and east because ghost ants can’t live in colder climates.
Identification of each of these eight is a separate topic and beyond the scope of this guide.
If you want to know more about them, then you can check out the article later.
You’ll come across carpenter ants, sugar ants, and odorous ants in your bedroom most of the time.
These ants are widespread across many homes in the US.
Now that you know why ants are in your bedroom and where they come from, it’s time to get rid of them.
But here’s the catch.
If you focus only on getting rid of ants in the bedroom, then it’d be a half-baked approach.
Ants will be back again, no matter how many times you try to get rid of them.
The key is to get rid of them from their source and your kitchen.
Remember, your kitchen is the place where most of the ants are hiding.
And the source of ants in your home is your yard or garden.
So, to secure your bedroom from ants, let’s begin from the yard.
Stage#1 – Get Rid Of Ants In Yard Or Garden To Destroy Ant’s Source To Your Home
Here are 4-steps to get rid of ants in the yard.
Step#1 – Clean Your Yard To Remove Ants’ Hiding Places (Apartment Dwellers Can Skip This Step)
Ants hide in the foliage, mulch, and they make nests underneath the ground.
The nests have a mud mound with a bit of a crater at the top. It’s the entry point to the nest.
Begin with cleaning your yard of all the foliage, tree stumps, organic wastes.
Trim or get rid of any unwanted shrubs and bushes.
If there are any trash bins with waste in your yard, dispose of the debris and clean the trash bin with dish soap or disinfectant.
Dirty trash bins can have maggots. And maggots can attract ants and roaches.
Also, don’t forget to clean the gutters on your roof. Gutters choked with foliage, and other types of wastes provide ants an excellent hiding place.
Ants can exploit the minor cracks on the walls that form around the gutters to enter your home.
If there are any waterholes in your yard or garden, fill them up.
Ensure that there are no water leakages around your home’s foundation and in your yard.
Waterholes and water leakages keep your yard damp. And the moisture in your yard attracts ants, termites, and even roaches.
Step#2 – Prepare An Ant Killer Recipe: Mixture Of White Vinegar And Hot Water
White vinegar is a lethal pest killer.
It kills not only ants but also the acidic nature and caustic smell of white vinegar kill. It repels roaches, centipedes, and many other pests and bugs.
Preparing an ant killer with white vinegar is easy.
All you’ve to do is mix equal parts of white vinegar and water and heat the mixture on a steam pot.
Now pour the mixture into a spray bottle and spray it across your yard.
Don’t forget to spray on mulch. Mulch can harbor termites, and termites attract ants.
Also, pour a generous amount of this mixture on the mud mounds to kill ants hiding inside.
Step#3 – Scatter Diatomaceous Earth On Your Yard To Kill The Remaining Ants
We can’t emphasize how vital diatomaceous earth is to get rid of pests from your home.
Every home should have a packet of diatomaceous earth.
It’s lethal against all kinds of pests like bed bugs, termites, roaches, and ants.
Not only that, but you can also use diatomaceous earth on your pets to get rid of fleas.
To kill the remaining ants left out in the above two steps, scatter generous amounts of diatomaceous earth across your yard.
Again, don’t forget the mulch area.
Diatomaceous earth penetrates the bugs’ bodies, robs them of moisture, and breaks their exoskeleton, causing immediate death to the bugs.
Use food-grade diatomaceous earth. It’s safe for pets, kids, and plants and seedlings in your yard or garden.
As an alternative, you can use ant powders too.
But ant powders can harm seedlings in your yard or garden.
Step#4 – Seal The Cracks And Gaps On The Exterior Walls To Deny Ants Entering Your Home
Sealing off the cracks and gaps with a reliable quality sealant is one of the most underrated yet most valuable ways to prevent ants and many other types of pests inside your home.
Pros pest controllers do it, and you should do it too.
It’s because bugs and insects exploit these cracks to get inside your home. And it includes invasive pests like termites and roaches.
So, seal the gaps and cracks on the exterior walls, doors, and windows.
If there are any bushes or shrubs near your home’s perimeter, get rid of them or trim them.
Bugs and ants use these bushes and shrubs as a bridge to enter your home.
Also, chop off the branches of trees that are touching your home’s roof, doors, and windows.
Ants use these branches to get inside your home.
Stage#2 – Get Rid Of Ants In Kitchen
As we said earlier, your kitchen is the place where ants invade once they enter your home.
So, without treating your kitchen for ants, you can’t get rid of ants in the bedroom.
Here’s how you can do it.
Step#1 – Clean Your Kitchen
No matter how sprinkling clean your kitchen is now, there’s always something around that can keep the ants well fed.
There are food stains, food crumbs, loose food packets, and loosely packed jars and Tupperware in your pantry that are providing ants the nutrition they need.
So, the first step is to clean your kitchen.
Begin by vacuum cleaning your kitchen and pantry storage area.
While vacuuming, you’ll find many ants scurrying across the floor. Don’t try to smash them.
Smashing ants can emit a foul odor. Also, the pheromones that come out of the ants after you smash them can attract other bugs.
It’d be best if you remove those scurrying ants by using your vacuum cleaner.
Mop the kitchen with Lysol or with anything equivalent.
Wipe off the hard surfaces like the kitchen counter, kitchen furniture, and kitchen island with a disinfectant.
Doing that will remove any food stains on your floor and hard surfaces.
Clean your pantry storage, kitchen cabinets, and get rid of waste from your kitchen’s trash bin.
Ensure no open food packets in your pantry, and all the food items are in airtight jars.
Take everything out of the kitchen cabinet and wipe both the kitchen cabinet’s exteriors and interiors with a disinfectant.
Cleaning your kitchen will make your kitchen ant repellant, and it’ll also deny the ants the food supply.
Step#2 – Spray The Ant Killer Recipe: White Vinegar With Water
Remember the ant killer recipe that you prepared while getting rid of ants in the yard?
Use it again.
This time you use it all over your kitchen.
Spray it on tight corners of your kitchen. Don’t forget to spray underneath the sink, at the kitchen stove, and the top of the kitchen cabinets.
But white vinegar emits an acidic smell that many people find disgusting.
If you’re one of them, then instead of using white vinegar, use lavender or peppermint essential oil.
While using essential oils, you don’t need to boil the water.
Add 5-7 drops of essential oil in 20 ounces of water. Pour the mixture into a spray bottle and shake well before spraying.
To add more punch to it, you can also use a few drops of dish soap.
Should You Use Anti-Ant Insecticide Spray In Your Kitchen?
You can, but you’ll have to be careful.
Do not spray it on utensils or in your pantry.
You don’t want the poison of the insecticide spray to mix with your food.
But there are many non-toxic, kids, and pet-friendly and sprays available.
We highly recommend Eco Defense Home Pest Control Spray and Wondercide Indoor Pest Spray.
Please read the instructions on the spray bottle before use.
Step#3 – Seal Off The Cracks And Gaps In The Kitchen
Use caulk to seal any cracks on kitchen furniture, walls, and floor.
These cracks are entry points and hiding areas of ants. Underneath these cracks, there can be ant nests with a queen.
Or these nests can be satellite nests. Satellite nests are separate nests from the central nest.
Some ants, like carpenter ants, build satellite nests far away from the main nest so that the egg-laying ant queen in the main nest remains safe.
Stage#3 – Get Rid Of Ants In Bedroom
You’ve done a great job till now to eliminate the majority of ants in your home.
After you treated your yard and kitchen, which are the primary hiding places of ants in your home, it’s time to get rid of ants in the bedroom.
Here’s a 4-step process to get rid of ants in bedroom without fail –
Step#1 – Clean Your Bedroom To Remove Anything That Attracts Ants
Food stains and crumbs are attractors of ants in the bedroom.
They’re also significant reasons for attracting ants in the bed.
Ants get on the bed by following the smell of the food stains and food crumbs on your bed.
To begin with, wash or replace the stained bed linen and pillow covers.
Ants can be in the bedroom rug or carpet if it’s dirty or it has food droppings.
We’ve got an entire post on getting rid of ants in the carpet, which you can check out.
Then, vacuum-clean your room thoroughly, including the bed frame, the headboard, drawers, and closet.
Ensure that you clean the rear side of the furniture too. That’s one of the places where ants can hide.
Mop the bedroom floor with Lysol. Wipe off the hard surfaces of bedroom furniture with a disinfectant.
These steps will ensure no food stains or dirt on any hard surfaces that attract ants.
Step#2 – Seal The Cracks On Floors, Walls, And Doors
Ants exploit these cracks to get inside the bedroom.
Seal them off with a suitable quality sealant.
Also, if there are any cracks on your furniture, then seal them too. You wouldn’t want ants hiding in there.
Step#3 – Use Ant Spray To Kill Ants In Bedroom
Now it’s time to get on the offensive.
Use ant spray in all corners and tight spaces of your bedroom to kill any hiding ants.
As an alternative, you can also scatter anti-ant powders in your bedroom.
But don’t forget to vacuum clean your bedroom again if you use anti-ant powder.
You can use Eco Defense Home Pest Control Spray or Wondercide Indoor Pest Spray.
Both these sprays are kids and pet-friendly and made with natural, non-toxic ingredients.
Step#4 – Place Ant Baits In Your Bedroom To Lure Ants Out Of Hiding And To Kill Them
Ant baits work wonders when it comes to getting rid of those intelligent ants who have escaped the first three steps.
Ant-baits contain sugar or anything that ants eat, mixed with poisonous substances for ants.
The ants come out, takes a chunk off the bait, and takes it back to their colony or nest.
Other ants in the nest eat from the chunk, and within a few hours, all of them die.
For maximum effect, make sure that you keep the ant baits in the tight spaces of your bedroom, like underneath the furniture.
That’s it.
These four steps will kill all the ants in your bedroom, no matter what type of ants are there.
To keep ants away from your bedroom, avoid eating in your bed or your bedroom.
Are Ants In Bedroom Dangerous For You?
Fortunately, in US homes, you don’t have nasty and lethal ants like the bulldog ants and army ants.
But ants in the bedroom can sting you, causing a lot of pain and irritation.
Some ants can also carry foodborne bacteria that cause diseases and allergic reactions.
Will ants in your bedroom kill you? No, they won’t.
But having them around can give you a lot of sleepless nights and painful itching with red lumps on your skin.
So, it always makes sense to get rid of ants in the bedroom.
Can Ants Comeback In The Bedroom?
What if there are recurrent sightings of ants in your bedroom even after following these four steps?
It means that your entire home has a severe ant infestation, which needs immediate professional attention.
In that case, it’d be best to hire a professional pest controller to get rid of ants in your home.
Professional pest controllers have the skills and expertise to zero in on the ants’ nest and colonies.
They do it by following the ants’ trails that need expert eyes.
Ants are capable of causing severe damages to your home, like damaging floors, hollowing walls, and furniture.
Take them lightly, and you’re up for some massive repair costs for your home.
Do A Quarterly Pest Inspection To Prevent Future Ant Invasion
Intelligent homeowners always do the quarterly pest control by a professional pest controller.
Why?
It’s because quarterly pest control is the best way to keep a tab on the overall pest situation in your home.
Once the pest controller finds any pest infestation signs of any pests, they’ll treat it without extra cost.
Many pest controllers provide free pest inspection without any contract.
Quarterly pest control is a precautionary measure that helps you to save money on massive pest control costs in the future at a very minimum price.
Conclusion
To get rid of ants in the bedroom is a 3-stage process. You’d need to start from the yard and then the kitchen before treating your bedroom for ants.
The reason is that if you don’t, then you’d be eliminating ants from their source.
Focusing only on your bedroom will be a half-baked measure that can make the ants invade your bedroom again.
Here’s a four-step guide to getting rid of ants in the bedroom –
- Deep clean your bedroom
- Seal the cracks and gaps on the bedroom’s floor, furniture, and walls.
- Spray an ant spray in your bedroom.
- Use ant baits to kill the ants hiding in their nests inside your bedroom.
If you see ants in your bedroom again after following these steps, then your home has a severe ant infestation.
You’d need professional help to get rid of them from your home.
Contact your nearest pest controller now if there are frequent physical sightings of ants in your home.
We are Mark and Jim. We dabbled with bugs and pests for most of our lives. And we provide information and hacks that work in making your home pest free.