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They're everywhere. If a spot of bacon grease remains on the counter from breakfast, they're all over it. They're in the dishwasher. They got into the pancake mix. They're in the garbage. They were eating my boyfriends shaving scum in the bathroom. They were even in the toilet....
I feel like I'm living in a rainforest.
And to top it off, they've grown immune to the bait I use.
I can't just keep spraying Raid everywhere. I feel like I'm poisoning myself as much as them. And the exterminator wants $2000 to kill them off over the course of a year.
Short of Ender and a Doctor Device, does anyone have any ideas on getting rid of these buggers?
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I have the ants, too. When I got back from KamaCon, I found that I'd knocked some dry cereal on the counter before I left. There was a thick parade of ants from the bathroom to the kitchen counter and back.
I sprayed 409 down the line and wiped up the dry cereal, and they are mostly gone now.
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Adding vinegar to your rinse water on your flat surfaces is supposed to repel them (as well as cut through the soapy film from your detergents to get a cleaner rinse). I haven't tried it yet so I can't attest to its efficacy.
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We have had a terrible ant problem this year. I even resroted to ant killer on the lawn, but they came back. Cockroaches Schmockroaches. Ants are going to take over the world, crumb by crumb.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I think it's important to get rid of the tracks they follow, and destroy the scent, and bleach or ammonia are good for that. Not together, obviously. Then we use a few spices to get rid of them, things like paprika along the edges, or chili powder, are good. It's annoying having it laying around, but it's better than paying 2000 dollars. The point is that if you scrub your house from galley to porte-cocher, and get rid of the smell they follow, they will eventually stop coming. You should also crush any scouts you find. : )
Anyway, we use bleach, then paprika, and it generally works. Put paprika on the outside along the edges they come in too.
edit: Vinegar would probably work in place of bleach, as Goody said.
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Can you figure out where they're coming from (ants don't normally live inside, just forage inside when they learn that there's great stuff)? Try plugging up their entry points (caulking cracks, etc.). I've read about various barrier methods for preventing them from coming into the house. Basically, you need to make sure your house is clean - cleaning with a detergent eliminates the pheremone trail that they'd normally follow (clean the outside points where they're coming into the house too). RAID is evil. Don't use it. Switch to a different kind of bait if they're not responding to the one you were using (the kind the worker ants carry back to their hill) and put it outside close to their hill, where they normally start foraging. Bait usually takes several days - weeks to kill off the colony. I've heard that ants don't like citrus oils, chili and cinnamon, but I've not tested them personally.
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I've also heard that diatomaceous earth (nice because it's non-toxic) is useful for combatting ants. You have to be careful though, because it will kill other (helpful) outdoor insects also.
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We think they have a subcolony somewhere in the kitchen. probably between the dishwasher and the wall.
We also think they have a subcolony somewhere upstairs.
We live in a townhouse so our "yard" is comprised of a few shrubs surrounding the house. Supposely the homeowners association sprays out there. We certainly give them enough money they could kill every ant on the planet.
Have you tried Terro, Kayla? I usually don't trust stuff I've never heard of off the net unless I know someone who's used it. (hatrack counts as "knowing" in this case =)
I'm gonna try the vinager idea. I've Windexed their trails away over and over and they just come back. And I like the smell of vinager.
I've tried the caulk idea in the past. and it worked in my 2 bedroom apartment I used to live in. But this house is much too large and has far too many cracks. And in some cases railings and floorboards aren't exactly flush...
BTW, they found their way into the microwave now. I thought about seeing how long they could live before they were cooked, but I don't want a "THEM" situation.
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Plant tansy around your foundation. They hate that, supposedly. You can also spread it around, dried, like cinnamon.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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[quote] BTW, they found their way into the microwave now. I thought about seeing how long they could live before they were cooked, but I don't want a "THEM" situation. {/quote] oh the visuals..... give em a marshmallow before you nuke em, 'kay? Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Sugar mixed with boric acid sprinkled around the edges of rooms is supposed to be one cure.
Personally, if the ants are that bad, I'd just buy some of those fogger thingamajammies, pull the pin, close the door, and let those bad boys clear out your whole apartment. They work really well, in my experience, though they do squick me out when I get back because there are dead bugs lying around all over the place. Makes me wonder what's going to happen to me down the road when trace elements of the stuff get in my system.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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The problem with fogging ants is that they just wait until the fog clears, and come right back in.(if they are living outside and foraging) I swear the ants I thought I had killed in the lawn must have evacuated, like it was a hurricane drill, then moved right back in. There are just as many now as before.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Yes, we're using as we speak. It really worked at our last place, but it seems to be taking a while here. Apparently, we have a colony also. They say it can take a couple of weeks if you have that going on. Ugh. So far, we've gotten rid of all of them except for one spot. Of course, that one spot is teeming with them, but it's not an area that essential right now. They are not in the bedrooms or near the food, so I'm dealing with it.jjI like the idea of knowing where they are coming in from though. I don't want to seal up that entry because I'm afraid they'd just find another way, and I'm sure it would involve climing over me while I'm sleeping. Terro kills them slowly. They bring it back to the colony and it kills them all. Gotta love that.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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If the colonies are actually in your house, I'd have an exterminator come in to take care of them (since you'd need to have stuff put in your walls, etc.). Ants that live indoors can also cause structural damage....
The only ants I've ever dealt with have been coming in from outside. Good luck with what sounds like and awful situation.
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I also have an ant problem. The little, bitty, black ones.
I've tried Terro, which does work, but I don't like using poison because we have a cat. Also, I picture the ants getting into the poison and immediately taking a detour to walk all over my dishes (even though they have never been up in the dish cupboards).
I'll have to try the vinegar.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Boric Acid always creeped me out. My mom used to make little boric acid balls with flour and left them laying around the house in corners and cabinets.
When I was visiting with my son he tried to eat one and got it halfway dissolved before I noticed it. I freaked out and called 911 and they connected to me to poison control. All they said to do was give him a cup of water to drink, and clean his face and hands really well.
I said, "But isn't he in danger?"
He said, "Only if he has an exoskeleton."
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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About all I can say is to clean out your whole kitchen like you were going kosher. Don't eat food in any other room for a while. Rub down with vinager, like others have said. Make sure everything is in a sealed container. Run boric acid along all the cracks (just the ones along the floor should be okay) and along the corners in your cabinets, drawers, and if you have a pantry, along the wall on the floor. Do this in the utility room too, and your closets. But be careful that the Boric acid is not around food and always wash your utensils out of the drawer. Now bomb the house. Look for any sign of colonies near your house outside and poison them. Also, there is something you can spray on your carpet that won't effect you, but is poisonous to all insects that just walk on it.
Don't let any crumbs at all linger.
Do this about once a month for a year. Ants are pretty tough and it will take a while. You won't be able to kill them off any faster than the exterminator.
I might be wrong on some of my advice. I bet there are books about it.
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Tansy, sage and mint leaves repell them. The ones in my dorm have stayed off my bed ever since I started sprinkling mint leaves around the bed (I've been waiting for the bug man since I moved in. Hoping he'll come soon.) Not the best way to get rid of them, but good for keeping them away from things. I hear sugar and boric acid works, after a few days-they take it back to their nest, supposedly. Not gotten quite desperate enough to try. You have my sympathies.
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I couldn't find any here, so when my sister arrived from Canada last September, she brought me a box (yay!). I immediately made a mix and put it out in a few select places in the ant path.
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I use Terro when I must, but ants should only be a short-term problem. If you keep things quite clean, leaving no food out to attract them and using a strong-smelling cleaner (vinegar, mint essential oil, etc.), they'll give up in about 2 weeks. Remember that ants are just foraging for a good food source. They have nothing against you personally. But once they DO find a good food source, all their sisters come to help them harvest it. If you see one or two ants, kill them and clean things well. If you see many, again clean things well but you may also have to resort to one of the excellent murder methods mentioned previously.
One thing I haven't tried yet but might be worth experimenting with is "feeding" the ants a little distance from your home. Give them a pile of sugar or something that is much more attractive than the strong odors and spotlessness you have in your house. Try it and let me know if it works!
If you want to know more about ants, feel free to ask in the Insect Advocate thread. They are quite fascinating creatures, and I suspect that OSC had them in mind when he created the Buggers.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching one by one, The little one stops to suck his thumb And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching two by two, The little one stops to tie his shoe And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching three by three, The little one stops to climb a tree And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching four by four, The little one stops to shut the door And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching five by five, The little one stops to take a dive And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching six by six, The little one stops to pick up sticks And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching seven by seven, The little one stops to pray to heaven And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching eight by eight, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching eight by eight, The little one stops to shut the gate And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching nine by nine, The little one stops to check the time And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah The ants go marching ten by ten, The little one stops to say "THE END" And they all go marching down to the ground To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
But what I always try to do is find a black ant colony and harvest its queen so that i can have an Ant farm, I'm so far unsuccessful.
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"I, for one, welcome our new Ant Overlords... "(Yes, I know that quote is over used but I DO love it so...)
Anyway, since this year and a half old thread has been thread necromancied, I thought I'd give the results.
I think what finally did the ants in was the vinager. They don't seem to like that stuff at all. After I started wiping all the counters with vinager they slowly, over a few days, just stopped coming back.
Now I just Raid the occasional outbreak, but if it ever gets that bad again, I'll go back to the vinager.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Jenny Gardener: One thing I haven't tried yet but might be worth experimenting with is "feeding" the ants a little distance from your home. Give them a pile of sugar or something that is much more attractive than the strong odors and spotlessness you have in your house. Try it and let me know if it works!
I've done this in the past, Jenny, and had good luck with it. I just placed a cut down yogurt cup next to the point at which they were entering the house, and kept a supply of honey in it. I think that we've discussed this before, come to think of it--I think I remember a lot of talk about the way they seemed to get almost drunk from the honey, and how many of them would kill themselves by suddenly, after having been feasting at the pool's edge for some time, diving into the honey and swimming into the middle of it. Well, a little bit of talk, anyway.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Ants are always around here. They're always checking out the house and all the rooms, no matter how clean we are. But then, we have some kind of odd little fly (maybe?) - not a fruit fly, although we've had those, too. It's just a really really small flying insect, sometimes with a black body, other times with a green body, and the green ones bite and hurt me. Anyway, they only live for a couple of days, I think, and we'll get a sudden swarm of them for no reason I can figure out, and then two or three or four days later, I'll find their dead carcasses all over the place.
Ants love eating dead carcasses. Of those bugs. And of the cockroaches, and dead geckos, and dead flies...
So they, the ants, are always around.
But since I started using the sugar/borax powder, I got rid of major infestations, so now all we have are the few odd wandering ones.
quote:One thing I haven't tried yet but might be worth experimenting with is "feeding" the ants a little distance from your home. Give them a pile of sugar or something that is much more attractive than the strong odors and spotlessness you have in your house. Try it and let me know if it works!
This would never work here. Never. Not when there are easily a hundred ant nests hidden in various places in the house, around the house, in the yard outside... You know, good idea and all... There's just far too many ants to go around. [/whine]
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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My mom used to put stale sugar cereal outside, but we only ever had MINOR ant problems. The ones that came inside, she cleaned up with Simple Green.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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If you ever build a house, sprinkle copious amounts of borax acid inside the walls before the sheetrock goes up.
We did that, and are coming up on our eighth year in this house, and we live in the country where there are monstrous cockroaches and I've yet to see one roach in my house. Oh, I know they get in, but the borax acid seems to still be effective enough to kill them before they can establish a foothold. No silverfish either. The only problem we had was Japanese beetles in the basement before we finished up but now that everything is sealed up down there, we're good.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Borax kills silverfish? That's cool. They are a huge problem here, and you know how much we love books... It's heartbreaking.
How would you do that when there's no sheetrock? Seriously. Houses here don't use sheetrock or wood, except for doors, doorframes, and windows & windowframes. And furniture. Too many termites.
Houses here are built with bricks, concrete, and rebar.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I hate ants. Absolutely loathe the things. I hate the way they smell. I hate the way they're always everywhere. And the rain is probably going to drive them back into my apartment again.
Ants . . . why did it have to be . . . ants?
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Is that something that one of us could ship to you, quid? Or is it a toxic substance or somesuch?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The active ingredient in one of those silverfish thingies was boric acid. I have that. Or, um, I have borax. I'm going to see what I can make with that that will kill the suckers. Anything I can get here or make here is a better long-term solution. But thanks for thinking of me. You are sweetness and light, as always. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quid, in Hawaii, my house has a serious ant problem, but we put this little concoction together and left it in bottle caps around the house and now the ants are all gone. It should work for silverfish too.
2 Tsp Boric Acid 1/4 Cup Hot Water 1 Cup Corn Syrup (light or dark)
Dissolve boric acid in hot water. Stir into corn syrup.
Silverfish are my least favorite pests ever. I'd rather have roaches or spiders. Really.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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In Brazil when we had an ant problem, we did this:
1 bottle rubbing alcohol 1 butane lighter
Pour the rubbing alcohol all over the floors and the walls. Try hard to get it in the all the cracks (Don't do this if you have carpet).
Then, light the alcohol. Preferably from the doorway. With you on the outside. It will get rid of the ants for a couple of months. And it will be fun to watch for a few minutes.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Celaeno: We don't have corn syrup, but we do have treacle. Will that work? Treacle is the syrup of the kithul palm tree. We use it for syrup. I suppose I could try that out...
Thanks for the recipe. I'll give it a try. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Scott, didn't you know that I AM an ant?
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Anything I can get here or make here is a better long-term solution. But thanks for thinking of me. You are sweetness and light, as always. ![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
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Treacle is the syrup of the kithul palm tree. We use it for syrup. I suppose I could try that out...![[Smile]](smile.gif)
