Ants!!!!

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dataz722

dataz722

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Ok I have ants all over my house and they are driving me friggin nuts. He gets ants every spring as do all of our neighbors but this year its much worse. I just had one crawl up my arm while I was sitting on the couch a minutes ago. I need suggestions on things I can do to get rid of these damn things. I have tried those little plastic bait/poison traps and they don't work. Spraying white vinegar and water seemed to make it even worse.

*son of a ***** another one just ran across my keyboard while typing this*

A chalk line is pointless because they aren't in a huge group or have a trail anywhere. So what else can I try. Oh yeah, it must be completely safe to use with cats.
 
See if you can find some mint oil in the grocery store. It really works well for ants but will not hurt pets or children. Mix it with a little water and spray the heck out of your carpets and along the edges of the floors.
 
Nurmey said:
See if you can find some mint oil in the grocery store. It really works well for ants but will not hurt pets or children. Mix it with a little water and spray the heck out of your carpets and along the edges of the floors.
Click to expand...

Would it be in the cooking oil section or like health and beauty? Ive never heard of it and dont know what its used for normally.
 
The stuff I bought was actually in the cleaning section as a cleaner-deodorant degreaser. I just looked at the bottle and the brand name if Crest-O-Mint. The problem is that I have no idea if it's still available. It's been sitting in my chemical cabinet for forever because I've haven't had ants for years.
 
I had an ant infestation a couple of years ago. After trying 3 or4 different traps/baits and seeing the ants just turn up their little noses at them, I finally found one that worked. "Terro" liquid ant killer - "for control of sweet eating ants". The active ingredient is borox - I think the rest is just corn syrup. I got it at Home Depot. Box says it controls "all common household ants including: Argentine ants, Ghost ants, Cornfield ants, Pavement ants, Acrobat ants, White footed ants, Little balck ants, Odorous house ants, Crazy ants, Big headed ants, and other sweet eating ants". Probably won't work for grease loving ants or fire ants, though. It does say to place bait in areas inaccessible to children and pets, so you'd have to find a place your cats couldn't get to- might want to keep it in mind if nothing else works.
 
I have the same problem. It always seems that it worse than last year, but it is just a fresh pain in the butt. This is the first year I have taken the leave them alone and the will go away sooner of later. Hope I am right.

I have used the terro and it did seem to help.
 
Try to find out how they're getting in. I see exterior walls of houses taken apart all the time in my job. On numerous occasions, I've seen ant congregations inside the wall cavity. They seem to be coming up the foundation wall into the house walls under the siding starter strip, then under the sheathing and into the wall. So, my advice would be to see if there is some kind of pesticide product to apply under your bottom row of siding, if you have siding, or at the top of the foundation wall on the outside.
 
DeafSmith said:
I had an ant infestation a couple of years ago. After trying 3 or4 different traps/baits and seeing the ants just turn up their little noses at them, I finally found one that worked. "Terro" liquid ant killer - "for control of sweet eating ants". The active ingredient is borox - I think the rest is just corn syrup. I got it at Home Depot. Box says it controls "all common household ants including: Argentine ants, Ghost ants, Cornfield ants, Pavement ants, Acrobat ants, White footed ants, Little balck ants, Odorous house ants, Crazy ants, Big headed ants, and other sweet eating ants". Probably won't work for grease loving ants or fire ants, though. It does say to place bait in areas inaccessible to children and pets, so you'd have to find a place your cats couldn't get to- might want to keep it in mind if nothing else works.
Click to expand...

Is it a plastic trap or just some sort of liquid you spray?

menschmaschine said:
Try to find out how they're getting in. I see exterior walls of houses taken apart all the time in my job. On numerous occasions, I've seen ant congregations inside the wall cavity. They seem to be coming up the foundation wall into the house walls under the siding starter strip, then under the sheathing and into the wall. So, my advice would be to see if there is some kind of pesticide product to apply under your bottom row of siding, if you have siding, or at the top of the foundation wall on the outside.
Click to expand...

There are tons of places they could be getting in but since there is not any huge groups or trails im not sure exactly where.
 
dataz722 said:
Is it a plastic trap or just some sort of liquid you spray?

Terro is a sort of thick liquid that you can put on paper. The box comes with cutouts you can put the Terro on so it doesn't get soaked up. I had ant problems and used Terro and they make a crowd around the stuff trying to eat it all. I have three cats and they never seemed to be that interested, but I would recommend having a dome or something over the spot so pets aren't tempted.

I used to expect a crowd of ants if something sweet was left on the counter, but the ant problem pretty much gone away. I don't know if it's the Terro or something else. My neighbor did complain about ants the season they stopped coming to my house.
Click to expand...
 
I have the same problem, sometimes they are here, sometimes they are not.

I have tried many, many products, even a "professional" with 6 inches of exterminator butt crack. Nothing helps.

We just kinda live with them while they are here, and dont miss them when they are gone.
 
We just lived with them the last couple years but now they are everywhere instead of just the kitchen and downstairs half bath. I cant sit on the couch without the ****ers running across the laptop or crawling on me. Its to the point I think I feel them when they aren't even there.
 
I'll trade - your ants for the two inch plus long roaches we have down here. :eek:
Neko gave a good description of the Terro - I think it's just corn syrup with borox added. If your ants like sweet stuff, they'll like the Terro and gather round to lap it up. You'll see a lot of them the first day or two, then only a few. Just keep refreshing the Terro for a few days - it thickens up as it evaporates and becomes less attractive to the ants.
 
Is it little tiny sugar ants? I've had problems in the past but got rid of them. Yesterday they came back in the kitchen. Here's my method that clears them out quickly:

Mix 1/2 cup HOT water with 1 cup sugar and 1 tbsp boric acid powder. Spoon the syrup over cotton balls in soda bottle caps, and set this bait out where the ants are. In no time they'll be swarming all over it. The hard part is just letting them do their thing for a few days, but they'll vanish after that as they're trucking the poison home to the nest. It doesn't kill them immediately, but as they digest the sugar the boric acid will crystalize and choke them to death, and if the syrup mix is at the right concentration it will have made its way to other ants and the queen before it starts killing them off.

The homemade boric acid baits are pet-friendly - the toxicity is so low it isn't an issue. You can get boric acid at any pharmacy, usually in the eyecare section. It's the only acid that does not harm the eye, and can be used as eyewash when diluted with water. We used to use it to clean kittens' eyes of gunk and dirt when we had a lot of cats living in our shed.

Boric acid is a natural insecticide and it works on a lot of different crawlies.
 
Buford said:
The hard part is just letting them do their thing for a few days, but they'll vanish after that as they're trucking the poison home to the nest.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had to convince my wife to let them be for a while... now NO MORE ANTS!

I would have to check to see what I used, but it was a syringe from home depot of liquid as described above.

I also treat the outside of my house along the foundation with a gallon of spray from home depot.
Georgia is a jungle... we have insects that star in sci fi movies.
 
chefmike said:
I also treat the outside of my house along the foundation with a gallon of spray from home depot.
Georgia is a jungle... we have insects that star in sci fi movies.
Click to expand...

There's a "perimeter" spray product I use for all the damn spiders. Apply at the end of spring every year and it seems to keep a majority of the buggers out of my basement/house.

Now if only there was a way to get rid of those creepy f-ing house centipedes... those things FREAK ME OUT.
 
I just spray all around the house with Diazanon (sp). It keeps all the critters out and I feel confident that our 2 year old will find his second penis more useful as he get older.
 
DeafSmith said:
I had an ant infestation a couple of years ago. After trying 3 or4 different traps/baits and seeing the ants just turn up their little noses at them, I finally found one that worked. "Terro" liquid ant killer - "for control of sweet eating ants". The active ingredient is borox - I think the rest is just corn syrup. I got it at Home Depot. Box says it controls "all common household ants including: Argentine ants, Ghost ants, Cornfield ants, Pavement ants, Acrobat ants, White footed ants, Little balck ants, Odorous house ants, Crazy ants, Big headed ants, and other sweet eating ants". Probably won't work for grease loving ants or fire ants, though. It does say to place bait in areas inaccessible to children and pets, so you'd have to find a place your cats couldn't get to- might want to keep it in mind if nothing else works.
Click to expand...

+100,000,000. I had a bad infestation of the little black ants. Tried 5 different products that did nothing. This one rid me of them in a week. Haven't seen one now for 2 years.
 
I also had a problem with ants in my house a few weeks ago. The SWMBO kept me up until at least 2:30am looking for ants. Needless to say, I needed to find a solution. Went up to Home Depot and picked up a bottle of Ortho Home Defense Perimeter and Indoor Insect Killer. I sprayed the outside perimeter of our house plus sprayed along all doors, windows, and walls inside the house. The next day, there wasn't an ant in sight.

The nice thing about this stuff is that you only have to worry about your pets until it dries. After it is dry, a little kid could lick this stuff without worrying about anything. It also takes care of other insects as well. Living 5 houses from Lake Erie, we have all sorts of weird bugs make their way into our house. Since applying this stuff, I haven't seen any spiders, earwigs, ants, etc. They all decided to get out of my house and hopefully are now peacefully residing in my annoying neighbor's house.
 
rsmith179 said:
I also had a problem with ants in my house a few weeks ago. The SWMBO kept me up until at least 2:30am looking for ants. Needless to say, I needed to find a solution. Went up to Home Depot and picked up a bottle of Ortho Home Defense Perimeter and Indoor Insect Killer. I sprayed the outside perimeter of our house plus sprayed along all doors, windows, and walls inside the house. The next day, there wasn't an ant in sight.

The nice thing about this stuff is that you only have to worry about your pets until it dries. After it is dry, a little kid could lick this stuff without worrying about anything. It also takes care of other insects as well. Living 5 houses from Lake Erie, we have all sorts of weird bugs make their way into our house. Since applying this stuff, I haven't seen any spiders, earwigs, ants, etc. They all decided to get out of my house and hopefully are now peacefully residing in my annoying neighbor's house.
Click to expand...

I'm less than a mile from Lk Ontario, and I use the same stuff. :mug:
 
+1 on the liquid ant killer. We had an infestation last month, we put those out along with spraying around the entire foundation of the house, and I have not seen anymore.
 
+1 on the Terro. They will eat the crap out of it for 3 or 4 days, then take it back to the nest and you'll never see them again.
 
+1 on the Terro. Works great and Borax is relativly harmless (my wife uses it to whiten our cloth baby diapers). Every time I've had ants I just put out one of the traps at the place they are coming in the house and within days they are completely gone and stay gone for a good while. Ant Problem? Terro = Ant Control Solutions
 
I avoided brewing this past weekend due to the ants swarming in the kitchen. I put out the homemade boric acid sugar baits around mid-week, and as of yesterday the ants were gone.
 

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