weirdly enough, I use non-scented detergent

8/13/2007 7:13:42 PM

Exterminator came, no ants for 24 hours; left a breadcrumb in the sink, they're back. You know as much as I hate these fuckers, I do have to admire them.

8/16/2007 11:22:40 AM

leave a glass of juice out. let them all gather and then kill them. repeat.

8/16/2007 11:28:18 AM

leave out some vinegar....it attracts them

8/16/2007 11:34:28 AM

I cant get rid of the motherfucking ants in my house!!! We keep the place spotless, but they chew into packs of grits, crackers, moon pies, ets. Im using ortho home defense and terro in the house and liquid seven outside but they are still here. I took all of the food out of my cabinets tonight and moved everything from the kitchen to another room. Im gonna fog the kitchen tomorrow. Any more advice?

9/10/2007 10:08:20 PM

yeah they are bad in my whole neighborhood right now - they've popped up pretty bad in the kitchen twice in the past 3 months - the exterminator is coming out soon to hopefully fix it because we've tried the traps and whatnot and it's a good short term solution but we're tired of dealing with it

9/10/2007 10:25:26 PM

sometimes the best defense is hand to hand combat with the ants. i remember i had an evasion in my bedroom a few years ago and i just sat by the window seal smashing them one by one. the ant holocaust served as a reminder that should they try that shit again, they would be met with my thumb of death.

9/10/2007 10:31:53 PM

I sat in front of one of the cabinets that had the most ants and vacumed live ants for thirty minutes earlyer. They just keep coming.

9/10/2007 10:34:49 PM

Bizarre as it sounds, I've found that Formula 409 does a pretty good job of killing them on contact and, apparently, disrupting the chemical trails they leave behind. It can be a good method of point defense against any single line.

If you've tried several things and failed you might just be dealing with a large number of colonies. Where I used to live they would come from a couple of yards down to get into my house, so even after we stamped out the ones in our area they kept coming.

9/10/2007 10:45:12 PM

9/11/2007 9:39:56 AM

^^ It is definitely a colony issue. If I go set out a piece of cake in the driveway right now, and go look in the morning, there will be no cake and a whole new hill will be there. There are hills all around our house (Lucky1 and I live together), we've drenched them, set them on fire and all sorts of other crap and nothing kills them. It is just a massive population problem. I wish it would freeze tonight!!

9/11/2007 3:59:11 PM

bttt

5/26/2009 10:30:52 PM

I used poster putty (sticky tack) everywhere they were getting in. Worked well and I didn't kill anything!

5/26/2009 10:54:36 PM

I'm surprised diatomaceous earth hasn't been mentioned yet. I forget why it works exactly, but you basically line wherever the ants are coming from with the diatomaceous earth. Windowsills, cracks under doors, sink drains, etc. Bye bye ants.

[Edited on May 26, 2009 at 11:12 PM. Reason : .]

5/26/2009 11:12:23 PM

I had a massive invasion this weekend. A combination of bleach for the immediate kill, Raid ant killer for the short term, and Terro for the long term turned it into an all-out holocaust.

I keep my place clean, but 4 continuous days of rain drove them inside. I caught them on the outside of the house bringing their larvae up out of the ground.

Quote :

"diatomaceous earth"

tell me more.

5/26/2009 11:26:14 PM

We had a few of these little guys on Sunday in the kitchen of the house I'm in the process of moving in to. Thought it was odd because there wasn't any food in the kitchen yet, though maybe they were searching for water. Killed the ~30 we found, put out some Ortho ant traps (I wasn't aware of Terro until I read this thread). No more so far, but I'm concerned...I'll be trying the Terro next if I see any more. It will suck if we're moving into a pre-existing ant problem...but maybe it won't be too bad.

5/27/2009 1:11:14 AM

ants dont give me a problem.

it's the ladybugs that are hell to deal with

5/27/2009 1:59:11 AM

^^^ You can pick it up at Lowe's or Home Depot. If I remember correctly it's in the gardening section because it's also pretty good at killing slugs. It should have direction on the package for using it against ants.

5/27/2009 2:47:43 AM

This would have been a great BTTT last September. We'd spray Raid and kill the buggers whenever they came back, but they'd keep showing up until it got cold. I moved out in December, so I wonder if they came back this spring. Curious how ants pick their targets. Our place was on the third floor and was pretty clean, so it's not like they were finding anything. There's bound to be messier units in a college apartment complex.

5/27/2009 8:01:51 AM

diatomaceous earth

this works for fleas and bed bugs as well


Diatomaceous Earth kills by physical action, not chemical, by puncturing the insect's exoskeleton and absorbing the moisture in their bodies. It desicates the bugs.

http://www.dirtworks.net/Diatomaceous-Earth.html

5/27/2009 8:46:12 AM

sugar ants have been fucking ridiculous at my house this year. Every week I am putting out more terro. They are gone for a week, then they are back somewhere else. About to put some outside traps...

5/27/2009 10:42:07 AM

There is an ant poison I used last year that worked well for a huge ant colony we found. Basically, its a granular poison that you cover the top of the hill with and then water. I highlight "water" because I didn't read instructions at first and just created a ring around the hill . That certainly didn't kill them, but the sprinkling and watering did.

I think the water allows the poison to soak into their tunnels and kill them. The entire hill was dead in 1-2 days. If you can find the hills, I'd try this.

5/27/2009 11:17:42 AM

bttt

8/9/2009 9:49:43 AM

i've seen more ants in my house this year than i have ever seen ever

8/9/2009 5:16:12 PM

So, yeah, what's the hot new method for eliminating ants from your apartment? No matter how clean we keep the place, they keep coming around looking for food. They're even in our dishwasher now.

8/9/2009 6:51:55 PM

im gonna try this D Earth stuff tomorrow

i'm actually having more trouble with mosquitos and im gonna use this as a guide (http://www.wisebread.com/pesky-pests-easy-homemade-mosquito-and-insect-traps-and-repellent), anybody have anything else that works cheap that doesnt need refilling every 2 weeks?

[Edited on August 9, 2009 at 9:46 PM. Reason : f]

8/9/2009 9:43:41 PM

for some reason, i am highly amused by and fond of sugar ants.

8/9/2009 10:04:28 PM

i LOVE ants

but it's like i'm fighting ww1 trench warfare with the guys at the moment

8/9/2009 10:27:52 PM

more like fighting WWZ - world war with ZOMBIES

these fuckers never quit, always on the assault

8/10/2009 12:13:46 AM

i have a pair of feral cats that i feed...the ants kind of hang around the cats' food bowl, but i've yet to find them inside (so far...knock on wood)

8/10/2009 8:08:57 AM

I've had good results with the Terro so far. There's a spot in the kitchen just above the sink where they keep getting in, but an application of terro will banish them for another couple weeks. The numbers haven't been a problem yet (knock on wood).

8/10/2009 8:25:00 AM

I too have seen more ants in my house this year than i have ever seen ever. I found 6-7 huge anthills last week. A few were flush against the house. I bought some of that powder you sprinkle on top and add water to kill the hill. I also bought some spray for the foundation and traps.

8/10/2009 9:59:56 AM

This year we had another invasion, but I caught it early and put some spray ant killer on the carpet where they were coming in. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the source of them outside and had scattered ants heading inside for the next week.

I then bought some more of the granuals that the ants take back to the nest, share, and erradicate the entire mound. I put a ring around the entire house (ended up being maybe half the container). Havent seen an ant since (been about 1 month).

8/10/2009 10:16:53 AM

fyi, at the crossroads Home Depot the Diatomaceous Earth is in the Pool Supplies section and comes in a huge box for $20. i sprinkled it on the entire lawn, it looks like christmas.

8/10/2009 12:19:04 PM

i was reading about that stuff

it sounds like it would kill almost ALL bugs in general

i don't think i want to kill ALL the bugs in my yard

8/10/2009 1:07:06 PM

Terro ant killer

</thread>

8/10/2009 10:10:59 PM

im bumping this only because we recently found these bitches i our kitchen

picking up terro today and thoroughly cleaning out the one cabinet they seem to be congregating.

7/13/2010 9:27:11 AM

They're more persistent this year. I put out Terro in their usual entry path and it'll be an ant party, then a few days of silence, but they'll be back within a week, much more annoying than the several weeks' absence it would cause last year. Not to mention they have probably 6 or 7 possible entry points all along one wall--they come from behind the outlet and switch cover plates, tiny gaps in the window frame, even through nail/screw holes where the cabinets are mounted to the wall. Might have to try some home defense and treat the strip of yard next to the kitchen wall with either diatomaceous earth or Amdro.

7/13/2010 2:46:26 PM

None of the poisons work for me anymore. Not Home defense, not Terro, not Amdro. I just follow their trail outside close to their nest and lay a bottle of Hersey's syrup near the area. They seem to stop bothering my house for several weeks. It actually ends up being cheaper than that fancy/expensive poison.

[Edited on July 13, 2010 at 11:51 PM. Reason : ]

7/13/2010 11:49:26 PM

I moved to Washington. No more ants. Or mosquitos.

7/14/2010 6:33:41 AM

I heard you bought a Lotus, too. Why don't you tell us about that?

7/14/2010 9:52:33 AM

http://www.pestcontrolmart.com

look under odorous house ant

[Edited on July 14, 2010 at 9:56 AM. Reason : qd]

7/14/2010 9:54:54 AM

Quote :

"None of the poisons work for me anymore. Not Home defense, not Terro, not Amdro"

exactly.
do not use poisons, people!!!


Use diatomaceous earth and other natural products.

Has anyone mentioned:

7/14/2010 11:07:35 AM

^Dude...read the previous posts. Terro is a solution of borax and sugar in some sort of gel-type carrier. It's not a "poison" in the same way as most insecticides.

[Edited on July 14, 2010 at 12:57 PM. Reason : d]

7/14/2010 12:56:54 PM

^
I thought that was just one of their formulations...
Still. Don't use non-natural insecticides.

7/14/2010 1:42:25 PM

you could buy a premade ant bait like abathor or you could make your own borate ant bait.

0.5 teaspoon powdered borate (borathor from pest control mart!)
5 teaspoons sugar
1 cup water

mix it up and dip cotton balls in it. place cotton balls near ants.

fiance's parent's house on saturday, they were all dead the next morning.


http://pestcontrolmart.com/store/13-borathor.html
ships out of st paul nc. so you'd get it no later than friday.




if anyone else has bug problems shoot me a PM.

[Edited on July 14, 2010 at 2:09 PM. Reason : ]

7/14/2010 1:58:28 PM

the terro in the little trays worked great for us. i put down all 6 of the trays and they pretty much took care of them overnight. i had sugar ants and those huge black ants (carpenter ants?).



[Edited on July 14, 2010 at 2:37 PM. Reason : combined with Lorsban all around the foundation of the house]

7/14/2010 2:34:43 PM

I was like, "wtf is a sugar ant?" and had to look it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_ant

Quote :

"The sugar ant (Camponotus consobrinus)—also known as the banded sugar ant—is a relatively large ant, exclusive to Australia, identifiable by their orange-brown bodies, black head and mandibles"

I'm guessing you guys are actually referring to these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomorium_minimum

7/14/2010 10:39:31 PM

Either the ones you found, or also these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapinoma_sessile

7/14/2010 11:26:48 PM

the stuff dubcaps sells is legit...worked for me

7/14/2010 11:43:28 PM