Does anyone have any recommendations for getting rid of these little fuckers? I keep a fairly clean house, but I find them all the time in places where there has never been food since I moved in. Normal ant baits don't work and the stuff I use outside smells something powerful.

7/10/2007 8:26:48 AM

I've got 'em too. No matter how anal I am about keeping the kitchen clean, there's always about 5-10 of them walking around on the counters looking for food.

One time I left a paper plate with some old cake on it, and soaked it in raid. I came home from work, and the plate was like an ant holocaust. That was pretty fun.

7/10/2007 8:30:47 AM

I cleaned my counter and kitchen last night and woke up to find a trail from under the sink down the length of my kitchen and all across my counter. They aren't going to or from any food source, they're just covering my kitchen. I've also found a bunch in my bedroom, but there has never been any food in my bedroom. I've put out some killer, but they haven't gone for it yet.

7/10/2007 9:24:16 AM

its going to be bad for insects getting inside since it hasnt rained in forever

bring on the wet stuff and lots of it

7/10/2007 9:35:29 AM

they are following the water lines into the house like gunzz said. The liquid bait traps (the ones where you cut a little slit in the bottom and they crawl up into the plastic) works well whenever they appear in my house.

7/10/2007 9:59:22 AM

This is what DonMega is talking about
http://www.terro.com/products.php?product=liquid_ant_bait

they work great. the ants don't die instantly...they carry it back to their friends and tell their friends about it...meanwhile they all die....and they go nuts over it

you can find them just about anywhere, lowes, home depot, wal-mart, etc...

[Edited on July 10, 2007 at 10:04 AM. Reason : yep]

7/10/2007 10:04:03 AM

Lowes also sells these small stakes that you put into the ground, that work the same way. I don't remember what they are called, but the come in a white box.

They only cost like 10 bucks for a 10pack and they work fantastic. You don't need to put but a few of them out every season also.

7/10/2007 12:13:11 PM

Ortho Home Defense works for me. The big jug is $14 at Lowes and will usually do ~1.5 treatments at my house. I just go around the foundation (inside and outside) plus spray the doors and windows about once every 6 months.

7/10/2007 12:17:28 PM

im infatuated with ants and ive watched a lot of discovery about them

they have a community stomach and their own stomach
the community stomach is to share with the colony to excite the other ants

the sharing ant leaves a small dotted chemical line that leads back to the treat/food/poison

when said ant shares from his community stomach the other ants follow the dotted chemical line and lay down a solid chemical line of thier own over the dotted.

this cycle continues for every ant that shares from the first ants community stomach

just a FYI if anyone cares

7/10/2007 12:58:10 PM

^^ the shitty thing is, that they come in through interior walls at my house. The sandy soil in the eastern part of the state is perfect for these little shits. I'm going to try the Terro first, and see what happens after that.

7/10/2007 1:14:25 PM

GET THE TERRO ANT TRAPS.

It will bring more of them in for a short period, but then they will all die. Get them at ACE. Dont get anything else.

7/10/2007 1:32:58 PM

I'm putting the Terro out tonight. For some reason, it seems like they like my clothes, anyone have any insight into that?

7/10/2007 10:17:46 PM

STOP ROLLING IN SUGAR

7/10/2007 11:25:43 PM

hmm, i dunno whats up with that, it's not like you are sweet or anything

7/11/2007 12:16:00 AM

I had a problem with them recently in my kitchen, because I accidentally dripped some Tabasco sauce on the counter and forgot about it.

I have a MUCH better solution than all the fucking pesticides.

First: follow them back to their entry point. Granted it took me a good 30 minutes to do this, but I found out the 2 or 3 places they were getting in.

Second: Get a bottle of liquid antibacterial soap. Fill the crevace/hole/crack with it.

Third: Come back the next day and see where they are coming in now. Repeat one and two.


It took me about 4 days to nail all the entry points, but I haven't seen another ant in about two weeks. They REALLY hate liquid soap. Once it dries out, it leaves a harmless residue that they will not try to burrow through or move. And while it's drying it physically blocks and fills the hole so they wont try to plop through either.

Best of all it's a hell of a lot cheaper, faster and better for your health.

Oh yea, I just killed the bastards with a rolling pin, I felt bad, but Im not about to scoop them up and take em back outside.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:19 AM. Reason : I hate pesticides]

7/11/2007 1:18:17 AM

The Terro worked, but I'd started it before Noen's advice, so I might try that the next time they invade, which they will. Thanks all.

7/16/2007 8:46:20 AM

i think boric acid mixed with some sugar works well too

7/16/2007 12:00:27 PM

ok anyone ever had this problem in their car? ive got ants (pretty sure theyre sugar ants, really tiny ones) in my car and i cant seem to get rid of them. i dont keep food in my car and its fairly clean and i vacuumed the entire thing out about a month ago but apparently that didnt get them all. i cant seem to figure out where theyre living or what theyre living on but now theyre mostly on the outside of the car, very rarely see them on the inside. basically i just spend five minutes crushing all the ants on the outside of my car before i ever go anywhere, any suggestions?

7/16/2007 2:08:26 PM

^ Terro

7/16/2007 3:51:36 PM

GODDAMNTHESEFUCKERS!!!!! So I put out the ant bait last week, killed them off in my kitchen. Then, they came back. Killed them off again. Today I went to go pull a shirt out of my closet, damned if they weren't crawling all over my clean clothes hanging up in my closet.

Exterminator will be here Monday.



[Edited on July 20, 2007 at 6:52 PM. Reason : /blog]

7/20/2007 6:36:15 PM

I have asthma and the beau is going crazy with the Hotshot.

Are there any OTHER ant killing methods that work that don't have strong fumes besides the bait traps(that are not working...)?

The apartment complex apparently sprayed outside but refused to do the interiors. Is that why the ants are all hiding inside? I left a cheerwine sitting for MAYBE 20 minutes and it was COVERED but there were no signs of ants earlier. Where are they coming from and why?!?

8/11/2007 12:40:54 PM

The reason they are so bad is because there was no good ground freeze last winter. This is the 2nd or 3rd year in a row its been that way. Basically, we need a good snow and insects won't be so plentiful next summer.

[Edited on August 11, 2007 at 12:56 PM. Reason : they got into my microwave and it tooke me hours to get them out.]

8/11/2007 12:55:43 PM

put corn meal where you see the ants. this will get rid of them. they eat it and they swell and explode.

8/11/2007 1:15:05 PM

Grits or Borax, but be careful with the Borax f you have pets...

8/11/2007 4:51:14 PM

Sugar tits

[sorry, the title of the thread has been producing in me a compulsive desire to say that for the past few days]

8/11/2007 5:36:22 PM

I've almost sealed off my entire kitchen from these little fuckers. Found one last hole in a day or two ago.

8/11/2007 5:40:54 PM

sprinkle some baby powder around the hole, that helps ward em off

8/11/2007 5:43:54 PM

Grits and Borax. That's what I do.

I should also mention that I am extremely, extremely, extremely allergic to ants. When I see one, the first thing I do is get my cans of raid.

8/11/2007 6:54:27 PM

Sugar pAnts?

8/11/2007 7:40:28 PM

Quote :

"i think boric acid mixed with some sugar works well too"

That is what Terro is... its a simple sugar syrup with boric acid at 5%. Terro might take a week to really work but it will kill off the colony. This is the absolute best method for killing ants. Also, it is not harmful to pets or humans.

You can get this at Home Depot for about $3.



When I find ants along my foundation I squirt a little Terro in their path and it will turn into a feeding frenzy, literally hundreds of ants gobbling the stuff up. 2-3 days later and the ant colony is dead.

8/11/2007 11:26:15 PM

moth balls

8/11/2007 11:27:33 PM

to get rid of the ant hills on the farm i lived on we put lime (not the fruit juice) on them and they went away

8/11/2007 11:28:26 PM

AWESOME. So far everything you have said about Terro has proven to be true. Seems they are coming in through the range hood vent and then into the cabinets.

We put Terro cards on the top of both cabinets and in one, there is a black line coming in/going out and a black quarter sized PILE of ants feeding on that shit. We put another Terro card in that cabinet.

It's not harmful to pets??

These things give me the creeps. I keep getting creepy crawly skin

8/12/2007 12:58:20 AM

of course it is harmful to pets. 5% borax.

8/12/2007 8:41:45 AM

We got some sweet droppy liquid stuff that worked well.

8/12/2007 8:56:19 AM

^^Yeah, that's what I thought but it was said earlier that it wasn't.

Quote :

"Also, it is not harmful to pets or humans. "

They ate all that stuff last night off of three disks so I refilled them this morning.

8/12/2007 9:26:49 AM

Terro is amazing. My roommate's apartment at the Links was filled with the tiny sugar ants... thousands of them (my roommate leaves food/soft drinks in his room). The cans of Raid and Ortho killed on contact, but didn't take the problem back to the source.

We bought a small bottle of Terro and placed traps all over his room, and even outside where the ants were coming in. It was amazing to see how they swarmed to the traps by the thousands, and after about 3 days, they quit coming in the apartment. From there we treated the apartment regularly with the Home Defense stuff, and he made an attempt to clean up his room a little, and we had no more ant problems.

8/12/2007 9:27:09 AM

Ortho Home Defense os good stuff. I've never used Terro, but it may be good too. I need some Ortho now though, I had a freakin army marching around my mud room when I got back Friday. I couldn't see them because it was dark, they bit me before I could get the lights on though.

8/12/2007 10:59:28 AM

Quote :

"of course it is harmful to pets. 5% borax."

No, it is not harmful to pets. Borax is one of the safest all-purpose chemical compounds out there, especially among pesticides. It has an extremely low toxicity rating an pretty much requires continued ingestion of significant amounts to have side effects.

Here is what Terro has to say about it on their site.

Quote :

" I accidentally stepped on one of the ant traps. How toxic is this bait and will this exposure harm me? What if my cat or dog gets into the bait and eats some? TERRO® Liquid Ant Bait is a sweet food based product similar to pancake syrup combined with Borax. Borax is a mineral that is mined in the desert in California and is a common active ingredient that is used in soap products such as 20 Mule Team Borax. The product kills ants but will not harm people or pets. If you spill some on your skin there will be no reaction at all. Simply wash with warm water. Pets occasionally find the Terro and eat it. Our advice when this happens is to do nothing at all. The product is not toxic enough to cause a problem and the pet will be just fine. "

Also, while Ortho Home Defense is a great pesticide it is not good for treating an ant infestation. All it will do is force the ants to relocate to a different area in your house. Use Terro to eliminate any colonies in your house and then treat the foundation, entry ways, and key inside areas with Ortho to act as a protective barrier in the future.

8/12/2007 3:22:29 PM

I have been at war with ants since may They got in my car multiple times, got in through the windows, and today I found a shit ton of them in my closet.

8/12/2007 4:24:13 PM

No ants today, wondering if the cooler weather didn't make a difference.

8/12/2007 6:25:33 PM

Quote :

"Terro is amazing. My roommate's apartment at the Links was filled with the tiny sugar ants... thousands of them (my roommate leaves food/soft drinks in his room)"

Are the Links prone to bug problems...or any other problems? The boyfriend and I drove up Tryon today and noticed that they are close to the road I need to travel to get to work so I was going to see about renting there when I move in December.

8/12/2007 7:06:35 PM

Quote :

"Are the Links prone to bug problems...or any other problems?"

Not that I knew of. We were on the ground floor, so we did have the occasional spider or centipede crawl under the door, but nothing that wasn't expected. I do remember seeing lots of ants on the sidewalks when I was there, and due to my roommate's filth, they made their way into his room.

It's a great place to live, being very affordable, close to I-40 and minutes away from NCSU. Plus there is a Cookout and Bojangles within 2 minutes. What more could you want?

8/12/2007 7:21:40 PM

Aha. Somebody that works in HR left cookies out on their desk, and there were quite literally thousands of ants on them this morning, and they had a giant trail all over the building. After moving the cookies outside, someone sprayed the ants with Windex and they didn't like that. Those that came in contact with the Windex died shortly thereafter. I even invoked Bobby's "ant holocaust" term, as it was certainly appropriate. Other than that, no one cleaned up, so I am sure the lady that sits at that desk will be excited to find hundreds of ant corpses covering her desk. Next time, don't leave the cookies out!

8/13/2007 12:13:04 AM

we have them terrible here, I use the spray outside. The little bastards always get in my car, which is annoying. I get excited every time I find a "nest" outside and soak it with the spray. I estimate I've killed a couple million of them in the 2 years I've lived in this house.

8/13/2007 8:43:41 AM

I moved into a new townhouse in June and shortly after discovered ants randomly exploring the living room carpet. This was literally days after moving in and there was no food/trash/etc left around to attract them. My roommates and I thought they would go away in time if we kept the room cleaned and vacuumed often but they persist. I'm thinking about getting Terro since a lot of people have said it worked wonders but I wouldn't know where to put the traps because I can't find an entry trail. Windows and doors should be a safe bet right?

8/13/2007 9:42:54 AM

We didn't know where ours were entering from but the package comes with like 9 traps so you can put them out and move them around. They swarm to them pretty fast.

8/13/2007 10:20:38 AM

^^ put dirty clothes on the floor near wherever you saw them last . . . they'll swarm that shit in less than an hour. After that, just follow the trail to the end. If you have to, just put the Terro in with the dirty clothes, one of them will find it and then they'll all die.

They don't need anything in particular to attract them, I've had them all over clean clothes hanging up in the closet. Exterminator comes tomorrow.

8/13/2007 11:09:05 AM

Quote :

"One time I left a paper plate with some old cake on it, and soaked it in raid. I came home from work, and the plate was like an ant holocaust. That was pretty fun."

rotflmao

8/13/2007 3:46:52 PM

Quote :

"They don't need anything in particular to attract them, I've had them all over clean clothes hanging up in the closet. "

They are attracted to the fragrances in some detergents.

8/13/2007 3:57:26 PM