ANTS!!! My nervous breakdown has begun :-(

[melissel]

And I was having such a good day too :( To think that I was loving spring weather just this morning.

They get worse every year. Last year they didn't start until mid April. Now, we've had three days of low-50s weather and here they are! They invade the kitchen and bathroom, and stay until late September, usually. I have one more nontoxic trick up my sleeve, and then I think we're going to have to call in the big guns, which I hate because it makes me so paranoid about the kids playing in the yard :( I need a crying smiley...

That's all, just needed to freak out. Thanks for listening.

[amyable]

I totally understand!

[Alyce]

Find where they are coming in and put toothpaste over the hole. You don't want to use the gel kind. They are repelled by the toothpaste and it makes a great kinda cement to close that hole.

[Remudamom]

We used to have ants invade every year. They would march from the end of one particular room to the other. The children got to play with them for one afternoon. They got out their blocks and built a zoo for the ants to march through. They manuevered them around obstacles and through archways.

Then I'd get out the vacuum and suck up the line of ants. I'd do this for a couple of hours, on and off, and that would be it for the year. Of course you had to dump your vac carefully. I guess something about sucking them up confused the ones left behind? Anyhow, we wouldn't have trouble until the next year.

[GothicGyrl]

It's called Terro.. it's a gel like substance and it kills them. They feed off of it, bring it back to the nest and die.

Of course, we now pay a pest control every 3 months to come out and spray--got to. That along with the Terro, is the only thing keeping them away.

[LauraC]

nt

[Miss Peregrine]

Terro. The only thing that works here.

[melissel]

*sigh* Tried it. Tried it all. Nothing works. They get in along the back wall of the house and come in at million different points. We've tried caulking and spraying along the inside kitchen wall, but that just drives them along until they find hidden outlets inside and behind the cabinets. Last summer we let them surface at the top border of the heinous wood paneling along that wall and just dripped open drops of Terro all along the top border ledge (they wouldn't go anywhere near the enclosed trays). Most days there were so many that, from across the room, the Terro spots looked furry. We mainly ate in the dining room all summer, and I kept the kids out of the kitchen. The Terro never made the numbers decrease (as far as we could tell), but it DID work to keep them going across the kitchen and away from the counters and cabinets. They loved the stuff. DH says we treat them too well; that's why they keep coming back!

Oh, and we had Terminix two summers ago--didn't even make a dent in the population. They just traveled up inside the paneling to avoid the spray line at the base of the wall. We found lots of dead silverfish though!

We need to find some way to decrease the population in the yard. We have tons of decorative rock all over the property (the previous owners' favorite landscaping material), and they live under it. DIY-Dy gave me good advice about using diatomaceous earth, which is nontoxic, so I'm planning to flood the rock beds and the foundation with DE and see if that reduces the numbers and keeps them from crossing in. Beyond that...we have to call in the pros. I can't live with open Terro in the kitchen every spring and summer :(

[Sue G in PA]

We have ants every year, all year it seems. It disgusts me in the kitchen and worse, when I find crumbs in the dc room covered in ants or elsewhere where food should not be. GRRRRR.... Anyway, we had them in the bathroom a few weeks ago (I stupidly let my ds have his jelly toast while in the bath b/c he was sick). So, ants invaded. I put up a Terro bait and w/in a day or 2 they were gone. Now, I just find one or two stragglers every other day.

[Tap, tap, tap]

I alternate two brands of ant poisons every 6-8 feet around the foundation and in the decorative rocks. I like the Grants brand out door stakes and then I find another brand of outdoor stakes that says it kills the queen (I think it may be Raid brand), BUT is a different chemical than the Grants. I am the only house in my neighborhood who can keep them under control. We live in an old river bed, which is great for loamy soil, but bad for ants since they looooove our soft soil.

The first year I placed the baits at the first sign of ants then replaced them mid summer. Ever since then I place them about this time of year, before the ants start coming inside, and again in the summer if I see activity. If I see a line on the concrete, I use Terro. If it is on the grass in a part of the yard that is away from the house, I leave them alone. If I find an ant hill, I place extras near by to increase the chance that they will discover it.

My neighbor has tried using one brand at a time and hasn't gotten as good of results as I have with two.

[RoughCollie]

We have ants every year for a day or two, and I take care of them the same way you do.

One year, we had ants in the kids' upstairs play area. I couldn't figure out how they were getting in or why they wanted to, since I don't allow food or beverages upstairs and it is a long trek for an ant to make up the side of the house from the ground.

When I finally mentioned this mystery to the kids, they excitedly told me that these were their "pet ants". They had a special area for feeding these pets, and marveled over how the ants had discovered it and kept coming back for more.

I got rid of the food supply and the ants, and the ants never came in upstairs again.

We used to have ants invade every year. They would march from the end of one particular room to the other. The children got to play with them for one afternoon. They got out their blocks and built a zoo for the ants to march through. They manuevered them around obstacles and through archways.

Then I'd get out the vacuum and suck up the line of ants. I'd do this for a couple of hours, on and off, and that would be it for the year. Of course you had to dump your vac carefully. I guess something about sucking them up confused the ones left behind? Anyhow, we wouldn't have trouble until the next year.

[Mandamom]

>>> DIY-Dy gave me good advice about using diatomaceous earth, which is nontoxic, so I'm planning to flood the rock beds and the foundation with DE and see if that reduces the numbers and keeps them from crossing in.>>>>


I had GREAT luck with DE in killing fleas and ants inside my house. I wasn't even trying to kill the ants as I had pretty much ever given up on them but as I was killing fleas like crazy all of the ants started dying. that reminds me I need to put the flea stuff on my animals before the fleas start coming out as it is getting warmer.

So, I highly recommend this stuff. It's is cheap, non-toxic albeit a bit messy in the house but it worked for me. I hope it works for you.

[susie in tx]

Another thing to try is mint jelly mixed with boric acid. Another natural product is spinosad.

Mostly, you have to find where the queen is and kill her. I've used a drench outside on our ants that worked pretty well, also. I found the combination at http://www.dirtdoctor.com

When I got desperate, I called a natural pest control company and they came out. It was expensive, but worth it.

[Mrs. H.]

The kind you get in the laundry aisle. Sprinkle it on your carpet and leave it for about an hour, then vacuum it up. It will get rid of fleas, ants, etc. If the ants take to back to the nest, even better. It will kill more of them.

[melissel]

I alternate two brands of ant poisons every 6-8 feet around the foundation and in the decorative rocks. I like the Grants brand out door stakes and then I find another brand of outdoor stakes that says it kills the queen (I think it may be Raid brand), BUT is a different chemical than the Grants.

Interesting! We've only ever had one out at a time. We tried the Raid stakes a few years back, didn't work, but I've never heard of Grant's. I'll look for it

When I finally mentioned this mystery to the kids, they excitedly told me that these were their "pet ants". They had a special area for feeding these pets, and marveled over how the ants had discovered it and kept coming back for more.

ROFL! Darn smart kids, LOL!


I had GREAT luck with DE in killing fleas and ants inside my house. I wasn't even trying to kill the ants as I had pretty much ever given up on them but as I was killing fleas like crazy all of the ants started dying. that reminds me I need to put the flea stuff on my animals before the fleas start coming out as it is getting warmer.

Thank you for that. I'm really, REALLY hoping. We never expected them this early, or I would have been prepared with the stuff already! I hope your fleas stay away. Those are definitely more annoying than ants :eek:


Another thing to try is mint jelly mixed with boric acid. Another natural product is spinosad.

Mostly, you have to find where the queen is and kill her. I've used a drench outside on our ants that worked pretty well, also. I found the combination at http://www.dirtdoctor.com

When I got desperate, I called a natural pest control company and they came out. It was expensive, but worth it.

Terro is basically the mint jelly/boric acid mix. We also tried it with honey the year they were in the cabinets (that was a bad year for me :rolleyes:), but they kept eating it and coming on back. Either it doesn't kill my ants, or I can only imagine the sheer number of ants we'd see without the stuff out! I feel like we're in that old short story about the cattle ranch that's taken over by fire ants. By next summer, I might just be ready for the flaming gasoline moat *sigh*

THANK YOU for the spinosad idea. I've never heard of it. I looked it up and got some brand names (Ortho makes a version), so we'll definitely be trying that as well. And I always forget about the natural pest control options, thanks for the reminder. I will definitely start there first; I know there are at least two in the vicinity.

The kind you get in the laundry aisle. Sprinkle it on your carpet and leave it for about an hour, then vacuum it up. It will get rid of fleas, ants, etc. If the ants take to back to the nest, even better. It will kill more of them.

Tried it! It didn't faze them in the least :(

[melissel]

You know what really scares me? I've spent five years researching this now. The first year, I sprinkled oatmeal on the back patio. Within a half hour, the patio was swept clean, and we didn't see an ant for the rest of the summer. The next summer came and I did the same thing, and they didn't touch it, and they've been getting worse ever since. (My bestfriend says I killed off all the stupid ants :o)

If natural solutions, Raid, sprays, Terminix, and Terro (which EVERYONE says works for them) doesn't work, do we have RoboAnts? I mean, really, can anything kill these ants? Or will we wake up one day to find our house being dismantled and our children carried off? The sheer magnitude of the issue freaks me out :confused: We have no visible anthills or trails in, and even the stuff they theoretically take back to the queen isn't killing them off. It's truly frightening! I can't imagine living in an area where there are ants that can actually sting or bite!

[susie in tx]

There are some ants that are just really tough to kill. We haven't had any inside since I had the natural pest dude come. I need to have him come again, but I hate to pay him, ya know? We never seem to get rid of the silverfish, no matter what we do, though. I think that less paper in the house is just not going to happen and that's what they eat, so...

Our ants bite, too. It was not fun the year they came in the house through the outdoor electrical outlet.

[melissel]

Our ants bite, too. It was not fun the year they came in the house through the outdoor electrical outlet.

:eek::eek::eek: Ack! That just made me all wiggly. Ick ick ick! I can live with the silverfish, though they are super creepy. They're not nearly as prolific. The DE is supposed to work for them too, so I think I'm going to work it in along the edges of all our carpeting (they live under there and eat the glue and stuff, blech) and see if that helps. Ick! Now I need to go shower--I'm all creeped out!

I'm glad the natural pest guy was effective. After five years of this, I'll give him one of my kids if he can make them go away! (Though which one I'd give up changes according to the day we're having :D)