Written by a Zeus Services Certified Technician
We treat ant infestations across every London borough, from single kitchen trails to full Pharaoh ant infestations in commercial kitchens.
Why Spray and Wipe Never Works Long Term
The ants walking across your worktop are worker ants — expendable foragers sent out by the colony to find food and bring it back to the nest. Killing the workers you can see does not touch the queen, who can lay hundreds of eggs a day and simply produces more workers to replace the ones you have wiped away. Surface sprays and shop-bought traps might reduce activity for a day or two, but if the queen and nest are untouched, the trail returns — usually within the week.
The 4 Things Actually Worth Doing
1. Follow the Trail, Don't Just Wipe It
Before cleaning a trail away, spend a minute tracing it back to its entry point — a gap under a skirting board, a cable entry, a crack around a window frame. Knowing the entry point matters far more for a permanent fix than killing the visible ants.
2. Identify the Species First
Black garden ants (the common kitchen invader) respond well to gel bait carried back to the nest. Pharaoh ants — increasingly common in London's heated flats and blocks — must only be treated with gel bait, because insecticide spray causes their colonies to split and multiply into several new nests, making the problem worse.
3. Use Gel Bait, Not Spray, for an Indoor Nest
Professional gel bait placed directly on the trail is carried by workers back to the nest and fed to the queen and larvae, collapsing the colony from within over 3–14 days. Spraying the trail itself only kills the ants present at that moment and can scatter the colony rather than eliminate it.
4. Treat the Perimeter, Not Just the Kitchen
For garden ant colonies nesting outside — under paving, decking or in garden borders — a residual insecticide barrier around the external perimeter of the property stops new workers finding their way back in, even after the indoor trail has been dealt with.
Why Ants Come Back Every Summer
Garden ant colonies are perennial. The same colony overwinters underground and becomes active again as temperatures rise each spring, which is why so many London households see the exact same kitchen trail reappear every summer at roughly the same time. Without eliminating the queen, that pattern repeats indefinitely — no matter how many worker ants are cleaned up in the meantime.