Today I've found fire ants in the gutters and the dishwasher. What is the best way to kill fire ants before they completely take over my house?

8/5/2013 3:14:47 PM

Don't know about weirdest, but in the 9th grade I found them inside my cast on my leg. That was fun.

8/5/2013 3:19:08 PM

Nuke the site from orbit.

8/5/2013 3:24:26 PM

^^ I think I would cry.

8/5/2013 3:25:19 PM

When I was younger, there was a fire ant hill at the base of a slide at a playground I was at. I did not have this knowledge prior to going down the slide. Needless to say I had a really bad time afterwards.

8/5/2013 3:27:42 PM

space shuttle

8/5/2013 3:27:52 PM

I've got a friend that is allergic to them. He was mowing and ran over a mound, ended up inhaling a bunch of them and they stung him from the inside. His throat closed up and he almost died. True story.

As for getting rid of them, do you have any pets? If not, bomb the shit out of the place. If so, call an exterminator.

8/5/2013 3:42:46 PM

im battling black ants right now; one month in. The terro stuff really slowed them down but hasnt stopped them.

exterminator coming Friday

I was told you can run vinegar through your dishwasher and then cycle it again to get ants out of the dishwasher. Also, might want to clean the dishes better before putting them in.

8/5/2013 3:44:10 PM

Attn: ThePeter

Quote :

"Also, might want to clean the dishes better before putting them in."

Our dishwasher sucks, so I pretty much clean the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. I haven't been here for a week though, so maybe that's why the randomly showed up.

8/5/2013 3:48:15 PM

^ you can be spotless as hell and they'll still come in. My GF bleaches our entire kitchen and the fuckers still come in. poison is your only option, and even that will just get rid of them this year. they'll be back

[Edited on August 5, 2013 at 3:52 PM. Reason : a]

8/5/2013 3:51:50 PM

same here. i keep my house pretty spotless; especially the kitchen.

my ants, i think, came in looking for a dry space. this was during all that rain we had for days and days.

they are not getting into anything /thank god / and are confined. See about 10 a day but thats 10 too many.

I found where they were coming in the house; fixed that problem and now they have moved. cant find the new location. bit the bullet and will deal with them come friday afternoon.

8/5/2013 3:56:43 PM

Yeah, the rain will definitely bring them in. I have quarterly treatments by Terminex and I still have ants in my bathroom/kitchen. Not really a whole lot you can do about it outside of spraying the shit out of them. Odd that it's fire ants though, usually they like to stay in the colony. I just get the little tiny black ants.

8/5/2013 4:00:08 PM

^ yeah that was my thought too. bmel, you sure they're fire ants?

8/5/2013 4:26:06 PM

They're red which to me means fire ants. There were about 10-15 of them in the dishwasher. They've also built an impressive mound in my gutter.

8/5/2013 4:29:10 PM

How big are they? no homo

8/5/2013 4:31:03 PM

Fire ants can put me in the hospital.
I go through one can of Raid a month on every exterior door and window jamb, and the base of the garage door.

boric acid works from what I understand, but I don't have a lot of experience with that.

8/5/2013 4:34:12 PM

My Terminex guy uses some type of powder, I think it might be boric acid. He can't spray because of my bees. I'll have to ask him what he lays down.

8/5/2013 4:36:13 PM

they get in our pots at work after a bad aphid infestation.

theyll have one pot with a huge mound and then several satellite nests in other pots which are much smaller.


we have plenty of restricted-use options for control....since it is a greenhouse lol....but its a bitch if you worked with the plants or removed a drip tube before discovering the ants first

8/5/2013 4:43:48 PM

They were bigger than black ants. I'm pretty confident in my ability to differentiate between black and fire ants.

Our house is surrounded my mounds as well. Peter is bringing home some diatomaceous earth, so hopefully that will get rid of the mounds outside.

My great grandfather stood in a fire ant mound and didn't realize until he was covered in them. He wasn't extremely allergic, but he had to be rushed to a hospital. Fire ants are assholes.

8/5/2013 4:45:33 PM

ever heard of crazy ants? i hope and pray to never get them.

8/5/2013 4:48:03 PM

I have a few crazy Aunts, but that's for another thread.

/bad joke

8/5/2013 4:51:06 PM

When I bought my house there were fire ants in the yard. For a while I was spot treating with some mound destroyer granules, but they kept reappearing. I finally switched to treating my whole lawn with Spectracide anti-bug granules via seed spreader four times a year and that finally kept them away. I tried some Ortho brand stuff a few times, but it didn't work as well as the Spectracide.

8/5/2013 5:10:52 PM

I once sat on a fire ant hill and didn't realize it for about 30 seconds. I had ants in my pants within 5 minutes later.

8/5/2013 5:27:14 PM

I had abunch try to kill me when I was 6. It was at a beach near Tampa.

8/5/2013 6:53:15 PM

these assholes build big mounds in my yard, especially near the curb or at the stones lining our flower beds

i pour this on the hills and then water it



and then treat certain areas with this



it works in that they die...but the fuckers just build another mound somewhere else

the bug stop seems to have helped with sugar ants, though

also, i generally fog twice a year (mostly under the house and in the attic since we generally don't have a problem with bugs inside the house)

8/5/2013 8:14:32 PM

8/5/2013 8:31:30 PM

feed them grits.

they'll all explode

8/5/2013 9:46:53 PM

Quote :

"they die...but the fuckers just build another mound somewhere else"

Do the whole yard with Spectracide granules. They won't come back if you put it down seasonally.

8/5/2013 11:24:33 PM

fuck this thread...I hate ants

8/5/2013 11:54:05 PM

does anyone else get hypnotize watchin a disturbed ant colony? Its just really spellbinding...and a cause to get bitten up

8/6/2013 12:03:55 AM

I was gonna trump all you motherfuckers and say "Diazinon"
That shit kills fucking everything instantly, forever and sends pictures of the bug corpses to other bugs as a warning not to move in on this turf

But oh look it's illegal now.

Of course it is. It works

[Edited on August 6, 2013 at 12:24 AM. Reason : lol turf]

8/6/2013 12:23:23 AM

^^yep. I have always been fascinated by ants. To this day I watch every ant documentary that I can get my hands on.

8/6/2013 8:28:46 AM

Quote :

"They're red which to me means fire ants."

probably not fire ants.

fire ants have a dark, almost black abdomen and a reddish rest of their body. They also have a stinger, which other native species don't have.

8/6/2013 9:38:03 AM

I've had fire ants in my kitchen before

At first I thought they were just regular black ants until I tried to kill them. Instead of quickly and easily dying like the little black ants, these fire ants would just keep going, would have to really grind them in to kill them

Then I found this big fire ant mound in the yard beside the house. Killed the mound and they didn't come back

8/6/2013 12:30:56 PM