View Full Version : ANTS ARGH
wallydraigle
8-7-11, 4:15pm
I'm not really sure where to put this, but this looks like a good folder.
We have ants. I have torn apart our foodstuffs, and they don't appear to be into anything like that. But the second food gets dropped on the floor, they SWARM.
I have become fanatical about keeping the floors clean since last year when we discovered we had a mouse. Not that we were slobs before, but now the floor gets a wipe-down at least once a day, usually once after each meal (our younger child is VERY enthusiastic about food, which results in some of it going on the floor, even though she's finally learned not to drop food intentionally).
The counters stay clean, and when I cook, I also clean up the floor. There is literally nothing for them to be living on except in the few minutes between the first crumb from a meal hitting the floor and the end of the meal, when I wipe it all up.
I think they're either living under our kitchen counter (our dining table is pushed right up to the counter; the kitchen is open to the living area), or they're coming through the wall from our neighbors' garage (it's right up next to ours, and I never see any ants in our own garage). I've put down traps in the very limited number of places that are safe from toddler hands and likely to be found by ants, but they don't appear to be doing any good.
Can anyone suggest anything? I hesitate to go to the apartment office because I have this paranoid fear of being seen as dirty. This is totally irrational, I know; I'm not Martha Stewart, but I'm ultra-paranoid about keeping things clean that have even the slightest possibility of attracting pests. So far, the ants aren't actually hurting us or contaminating our food. But it really gives me the willies to look down and see a piece of apple dropped seconds before just covered in tiny ants. Brrr.
Mrs. Hermit
8-7-11, 5:08pm
Try a product named TERRO. It is a boric acid-based ant killer. Works very well. You put the liquid on a piece of cardboard, and slide in into cabinets, under the fridge, stove, etc. Most of the time it eliminates ants in less than a week for me.
Spearmint gum -they don't like it for some reason.
A couple of drops of peppermint essential oil in your washing water should help. I also use vinegar, I read somewhere that it messes up the scent that they use to track back to their nest.
We always get a few ants when the weather hits particular patterns, such as lots of rain. I sweep them up when they find some dropped food, and wipe up their trails. They don't bother me that much, and they never go after anything that's not on the floor. Dealing with them this way rather than attacking them is just one of the ways I keep my days simple!
get on the internet and find out what kind they are. Different ants respond to different methods. Several years ago we had some carpenter ants coming into the kitchen. Saw them a few at a time. Sprayed, it made no dent, put out some bait traps still coming. Researched them and ended up buying some kind of poisen in a tube that I spend on pieces of cardboard. Suposedly this stuff would be taken back to the nest and wipe them out. In a couple of weeks they quit coming.
Try a product named TERRO. It is a boric acid-based ant killer. Works very well. You put the liquid on a piece of cardboard, and slide in into cabinets, under the fridge, stove, etc. Most of the time it eliminates ants in less than a week for me.
Dittos here. We had ants for about a year - drove us crazy. We tried all sorts of raid products that the ants are suppose to go in and feed - never saw it happen. Then I spoke to a bug guy at the "Home Show" - He said to use the Terro. We find their trail, put the cardboard with Terro right in their path. They go crazy - love the stuff. We just let them come and go - usually by morning they are all gone. They have taken it back to the nest and it kills them. The small ants can set up nests all over - so when you see another trail - repeat the process. The key is to let them feed.
We used Terro for the tiny ants invading our kitchen for years. It always worked, getting rid of all of the ants within a week. We would have an infestation every spring. But this year Terro did not work and I gave it a month, so instead invested in some Raid ant bait and that stuff worked immediately - all ants gone within a couple days.
I don't know why the Terro didn't work this year. Maybe the ants had built up an immunity to it after so many years...
Never spray any type of bug spray in your kitchen cabinets. It is TOXIC!!
If you see carpenter ants in your house you have a problem. They live in wet, rotting wood and can cause the type of damage you see with termites. My parents had to have an exterminator come get rid of the carpenter ants in their house and then they had to replace the bad wood.
Years ago I had ants due to three enthusiastic toddlers and food on the floor, wiped up at least once per day. I found a mixture that was 2 parts water, 1 part Bonner's soap, 1 part tabasco sauce, sprayed that on the trails and they were gone in a week or so, and no danger to the toddlers.
loosechickens
8-7-11, 9:48pm
The active ingredient in Terro is boric acid.....so it is pretty environmentally safe. It all depends on what kind of ants you have. If they are the kind that love the Terro, it works, but other kinds of ants may pass it right by. Sometimes ants are after grease, others like sugars, some are just looking for water.
At this point you probably don't want to know how useful ants are, and that they have nothing whatsoever to do with cleanliness or lack thereof. It's been said that insects make up up to half of all the biological weight of life on earth, with ants making up a huge percentage of that.
Also, while the earth could survive quite well without humans.....without ants, we would be armpit deep in debris, dead insects and animals, etc., as ants are the hard working and unsung heroes of the earth's "cleaning crew". We need ants, earthworms and various carrion eaters really badly, and THEY are the beings that are important, not humans......
Of course, when you are in the midst of an ant invasion, none of that matters.
When we lived in Mexico, we had three distinct populations of ants, each with their own particular routes in and out, and lives lived in their parallel universe right along with us. It was impossible to get rid of them, so we chose to study them instead, and a more fascinating creature never lived, truly.
Try the Terro.....if it's the right kind of ant, it will work miracles. Good luck.
wallydraigle
8-7-11, 10:19pm
I honestly have nothing against ants (I kind of like them, despite my reaction to their insta-swarm on dropped food), so long as they don't invade my pantry. But we live in a shared building. I think it would be irresponsible not to try to do something about them, or to at least try not to encourage them.
We get sugar ants every spring. I find that they do not like cloves. So I sprinkle cloves along the edges of the counters and baseboards, and it keeps them away for about a month at a time.
Oh, we had ants this summer, too! We were totally invaded! If you are renting, I encourage you to tell your landlords. Pest control is their responsibility, not yours. Besides, some types of ants (like carpenter ants) can actually destroy or weaken the structural integrity of a home. Just because you don't see them anymore doesn't mean they aren't still working! They can cause a great deal of damage that is very expensive to repair, and the owners of the property have a right to know that so that protective measures can be taken.
DH always says that they are seeking water, that's why they invade.
I don't consider ants dirty at all, they come and go. They are extremely annoying when they swarm on certain things, but sometimes I find them interesting.
I haven't read all the replies, but many times it indicates that there is water around the ground area. Is your drainage good?
wallydraigle
8-8-11, 4:11pm
I don't think ants are dirty. I have issues about other people thinking that about me. I grew up poor by American standards, but our house wasn't dirty. I got picked on in elementary school a lot partly because of the stuff my family did and didn't have. Once, I invited over someone who I thought was a friend, and she went to school the next day and told everyone in our class about the (fictional) horrible state of our house. I'm sure there's more to my issues than that, but that's the one that sticks out in my mind. So it's not that I think ants indicate filth; it's that I worry about what, say, the apartment manager will think. Yes, I know it's irrational.
I haven't read all the replies, but many times it indicates that there is water around the ground area. Is your drainage good?
I think so, but I'm not sure. I don't see a lot of standing water near the building outside, but the sprinklers are going every night, and we live right next to a marsh. So it's possible there's water just below ground. We've never had any issues with flooding, and I'm told this has been one of the wettest springs/summers on record.
Terro is fantastic for small ants, but the carpenter ants do not like it. So, how can I get rid of carpenter ants in a non toxic way? Please help!
Try a product named TERRO. It is a boric acid-based ant killer. Works very well. You put the liquid on a piece of cardboard, and slide in into cabinets, under the fridge, stove, etc. Most of the time it eliminates ants in less than a week for me.
I second, third, fourth, and infinity Terro. I if you can't find it you can make it. AND it's non toxic to humans.
2 cups of water
1 cup sugar
2 T of powdered Borax (buy it on where you get laundry detergent)
Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar and Borax. Stir it until the sugar and Borax dissolve completely, and then continue cooking uncovered over high heat, stirring occasionally, for 6-10 minutes. You want it to be a clear, runny syrup — don’t overcook it or you’ll get Borax caramels (yuck!). Take it off the heat and let it come to room temperature. Don’t leave it too long or it will form a skin.
Ideally, you’ll want to keep this in an airtight squirt bottle (like the ones to deliver targeted amounts of condiments). You can pick up something like this at a craft store or at Walmart in the party aisle.
(For the record, this is the same stuff as Terro, which comes in neat little plastic containers and doesn’t harden up as fast. But this recipe costs a LOT less than buying Terro.)
Most ants will go for this stuff like you can’t believe — when they encounter it, they absolutely stop and start eating it immediately. So you’ll want to:
Put the bait down where they can’t miss it, but where you can just leave it for a few days.
:
How it works
For the science-minded, you may be interested to know that what’s happening is that the borax that the ants ingest doesn’t break down and stays in that grainy, gritty texture. The bad news for ants is that that means the borax will eventually do a number on their hard exoskeleton from within, and when it does, they die. If you kill off a big bunch of them, you’ll have less, but will have to do this again at some point; if you kill off the queen, you win (unless you’ve got multiple colonies to deal with).
http://this-side-of-glory.com/life/homemade-solutions/the-good-orthodox-girls-guide-to-getting-rid-of-ants/
I bought some boric acid powder and mixed a solution following these directions. The ants are gone!
TAke 1 tbsp. boric acid mixed into a solution of 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar. Soak cotton balls with the solution and place on squares of foil around the area with ant problems.
Tussiemussies
8-11-13, 9:49pm
We had a colony of ants, unfortunately, we found out when we moved into this house. The regular style ant traps were not working so my husband bought the brand Terro ant traps. We followed the directions to a "T" and it worked perfectly. There are scout ants that come out to see where they can find food, they go back to the colony leaving a scent trail for all to follow, then the colony comes out to eat the bait thinking it is food and they bring some back to the Queen ant. It was kind of hard to watch all the ants going to the bait, and not kill them, but I restrained myself as the only way to kill the whole colony is if they all eat it and then give it to the Queen ant. My husband bought Terro in either Home Depot or Lowes. We just put some more down as we saw some scout ants. They are the few you see here and there.
Good luck. I know how gross it can feel to have ants crawling around!
Ahhh, I just ran out of borax and ants have invaded the kitchen due to all the rain. Adding borax to tomorrows shopping list to give that a try.
We had a colony of ants, unfortunately, we found out when we moved into this house. The regular style ant traps were not working so my husband bought the brand Terro ant traps. We followed the directions to a "T" and it worked perfectly. There are scout ants that come out to see where they can find food, they go back to the colony leaving a scent trail for all to follow, then the colony comes out to eat the bait thinking it is food and they bring some back to the Queen ant. It was kind of hard to watch all the ants going to the bait, and not kill them, but I restrained myself as the only way to kill the whole colony is if they all eat it and then give it to the Queen ant. My husband bought Terro in either Home Depot or Lowes. We just put some more down as we saw some scout ants. They are the few you see here and there.
Good luck. I know how gross it can feel to have ants crawling around!
Put the Terro out early in the season and you can head off a season of headaches with ants.
heatmiser
8-21-18, 12:02pm
Ahhh, I just ran out of borax and ants have invaded the kitchen due to all the rain. Adding borax to tomorrows shopping list to give that a try.
You all probably have heard of this, but if you mix yeast with some sugary goo (honey or molasses or sugar syrup) and leave
small containers out, (or leave it near a visible anthill) the ants will flock to it and eat it.
Then the yeast expands in their stomachs and blows the ants apart when they are back in their nests.
It's a nasty way to die, but then ants are nasty creatures in my opinion.
My wife conducts Ant Massacres periodically using this method.
When I had carpenter ants I had an exterminator come out. At night turn off everything that makes noise. Listen and if you hear a sound like someone is crinkling up paper that is the ants eating the wood in your home.
Regular ants I don't worry about. They are few and far between.
I had good luck with Terro...........I like buying the little containers and putting a few drops on card board.
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