I got 'em. Ants. In the kitchen. And they are pismiring me off to no end. Any entomologists here, or someone experienced in formic extermination?
These are little guys, maybe 1/16" long. I’ve had the larger ones before, and the metal ant cups usually took care of them within a week. I bought a bunch of the metal cups again a few weeks ago, and they don’t seem to pay attention. The strange thing is that they seem attracted to my kitchen sink. I’ll get home and there will be ants in the sink and on the sponge. I can’t tell what they’re after or I would poison the hell out of it and give them as much as they want.
What’s the best method of finding out what type of ant they are and the best way to send them to sleep with the anteaters?
If you’re looking for a cheap method of ant removal, get some borax and mix it whatever you’re using for bait. They’ll take the poisoned bait back to their nest, where the queen will eat it and die. If there are dead ants around the bait, you’re using too high a percentage of borax.
Obviously, if you have pets or kids, don’t let them eat the poisoned bait.
And of course, all the usual disclaimers still apply…make sure your house is clean, don’t leave food out where ants can get to it, seal any visible wall cracks.
If all you are doing is trying to kill them the ones you see, windex does a fine job, and it covers the scent of their little trails. Once the visible ones are dead, one quick shot of raid at the spot they are coming in usually is enought to deter them. They might try a different path, but if you keep blocking their entrance, they eventually give up.
Nope. Massachusetts, but those guys would freak me the hell out. Okay, I’m counting my blessings.
The trouble here is that I really can’t tell where they’re coming from. I’ll have to spend some time just watching them and their traffic routes.
With respect to Borax: I remember this coming up in one of Cecil’s columns (thoug with respect to roaches). I know that Boraxo has boric acid. What are the implications to pets if they get it on their paws? Or to humans for that matter? I have to believe that it is fairly benign in small quantities, but any light you shed is appreciated.
I don’t know if it’s available where you live, but I’ve always found the liquid ant bait called ‘Nippon’ to work really well - I think it’s just sugar syrup with borax, possibly with something else in there to make it unpalatable to mammals - a couple of drops on a coin in places where you see the ants crawling - within an hour, they’re clustered around it, sucking it up, then a couple of days later, they’re all gone.
Brrrrrr! Those crazy raspberry ants (from Houston link) give me the willies!
We have had the usual spring ant invasion around our sink, and what works for us is putting some Terro on the windowsill behind the sink, where they are coming in. Also, if you have any plantings growing really close to your house, you might want to trim them back, away from the foundation.
Here’s Terro. You should find it at any hardware store. It does take a few days to work; just keep putting more down in their paths till you stop seeing them. Initailly, you’ll see a big feeding frenzy. Let them eat undisturbed, and they will take the poison home to the colony. Terro Bait
And to my great surprise, this seems to be the answer. Although I’m guessing that they are not turning down the occasional bread crumb.
I stopped at the hardware store this weekend. They had the Terro, so I picked that up. They also had something called Hot Shot. According to the packaging, ants can go weeks without food, but only a day or so without water which is why they are attracted to kitchens and bathrooms. This product had some reservoirs with a food/water mixture (and a little something extra that appeals to my malicious heart).
I placed the reservoirs and the cards with the Terro bait. It was a bit nauseating this morning to see just how many ants were doing the commute down the tiles to the bait. As Tabithina said, it was a feeding frenzy. I’m putting more out tonight.
Yup, they’ll go after water. Keeping your sink clean & dry with no standing water will help.
Terro is good, but it doesn’t always do the trick IME. I’ll have to look for the HotShot.
We had an ant invasion this spring. I tried various natural repellants that were listed in another thread. What worked for us was a mixture of ground cayenne pepper and ground dry mustard, covering the area where they were coming in.
When I was a sadistic small child, I waged war on ants…and won! The little black guys were persistent.
I took some Karo syrup and laid down a LONG trail, not a puddle, to give the scum more room to get the whole crew feeding. When they all came to get it (the Karo), I nuked 'em with Black Flag, and extra dose right at the head of their trail. This nailed basically every worker in the whole colony, so the queen and eggs starved. Hehehe.