Ok, we had ants a couple of years ago when this was a new development and the construction had stirred them all up. Got rid of them pretty quickly. Last year, nothing. THIS year, ants everywhere and I can’t seem to get rid of them. I’ve scoured the house from top to bottom. There is nary a crumb to be seen. I’ve put out those poison traps where they’re supposed to carry it back to their dens or whatever. I’ve doused the perimiter of the house with boric acid as well as dumped it on, behind and under everyplace it will reach. And I’ve been spraying them with Raid and squashing them with my hands as fast as I can. All the food in the house is either in the fridge or sealed in tupperware. The dishes are washed immediately after dining. I absolutely do not know what they’re after and I can’t tell where they’re coming from. There’s no trail and they’re turning up in places where there’s just no reason for them to be (the upstairs den and never used guest bathroom.) I’ve been bombarding them for like 2 weeks now and the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Can’t use a fogger because we have a cat, and won’t call an exterminator because I’m pretty sure all they’ll do is put out traps as well (that’s what the one who used to service our theater used to do.) Any ideas?
Ants are pesky little suckers. I had a similar problem until a couple of weeks ago. I called an exterminator who guaranteed me he would use a non-smelly form of spray. We did have to leave the house for the day (8 hours worth after spraying) and couldn’t vacumn for 5 days. But it did wonders. Haven’t seen one since. The spray was NOT pet safe. So make arrangements to move your pets for a day or two.
Sounds like you are being inundated by scouts.
Sensei
Are you sure they’re regular ants? Could be termites or carpenter ants, who like to eat houses. 
Your local pest control agency can probably tell you.
Peace,
mangeorge
Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
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Had a similar problem when my neighbor had her front lawn sodded. All kinds of things all over the house. The ants are after one of three things food, water, and/or shelter. Water, if you live in a humid area and run an AC then you can’t get away from moisture. Food, bugs will eat a lot of things you might not consider food, the glue that holds a paper bag together for example. Shelter, perhaps they were evicted from their last home. My advice call a professional that garuntees their work.
It’s easer to get forgiveness than to get permission.
I was hoping for something a little more folksy, like the way you catch fleas by putting soapy water in a pan then putting a light on it at night. I remember someone telling me when I was a kid that their mom got rid of ants by distributing shredded cucumber around the house. They’re supposedly repulsed by it, and who wouldn’t be?
Diazanon(outside), and Durasban(inside) completely nuke ants out of existance. It does smell abit when like the garden section of you department store, and its not good around kids or pets, but the nerve toxin thats the active ingredent allegedly degrades into its nontoxic components after a few days.
If that spook you, in california I discovered an all natural ant control system. Spiders, lots and lots of spiders.
voguevixen, sometimes in one house I would put food out, lots of it everywhere & get no ants.
Othertimes, a perfectly clean kitchen brought in a lot of ants.
I guess it just depends where you are located. You might try www.ask.com and search there what to do about ants. Im sure 100% there is the answer. Maybe one of the construction people brought in some ants with them?
What do they look like? Ants don’t all look a like. Sometimes you can get bigger ants to eat smaller ones and boy, does that work.
VV, if you have carpenter ants (quite larger than your normal little sugar ants), they eat wet wood so be on the lookout for leaking pipes or stuff that may not be easily found. We had a huge infestation and couldn’t figure out what the buggers were so interested in in our house until we discovered that our bathtub pipes were slowly leaking and had been for about 1 year. They were eating the wet wood. Yuck! What a complete mess. Didn’t discover the leak until it started to leak through to the kitchen, dripping water, ants, plaster dust, 90 years of dirt and etc, onto my kitchen counter. Gross. Once the wood dried out and we repaired the leak, ants went elsewhere.
I heard from this very garden oriented chicky that ‘tannis’(sp) is supposed to be a natural, non toxic repellant…I cant really describe it to you…it looks like ragweed a bit, and if grows wild here everywhere…try a garden supply store see if they can help you.
Oh, and there are perimiter sprays out there too, you spray them, and ants wont cross the line…(I have only heard of them though, never tried them.)
good luck.
“give me ambiguity…or give me something else…”
And just for a folksy remedy - I have heard that putting cinnamon sticks around your house will stop this - but I’ve never tried it.
Surround your house with a big circle of chalk 
Seriously though, working in the horticulture business, you couldn’t pay me to use Dursban inside my home. If the buggers aren’t after your food because you don’t have any lying about, I’m going to have to concur with the carpenter ant theory. Call a professional soon since they’re eating the insides of your home.
“I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Just FYI from personal experience:
If you have the little red or black ants, then you might try sprinkling some cayenne pepper around (that’s gonna piss your cat off, though).
If they’re the carpenter variety, I don’t really know what works on them, other than the old “hunt and squash” method.
If you’ve got a fire ant infestation–you’ve got problems. You will not get rid of them. You may get them out of your house, but they will make huge mounds everywhere…the yard, the ditch, the middle of busy highways. This evil ant can only be killed with powerful toxins (Sevindust, Dursban, Diazanon, Gasoline)–and they always come back.
Boy, I’m just a lil ray of sunshine today…
I think I’m gonna try the pepper. I don’t mind the cat being pissed off so much as dead. They’re little black ants and I’ve never had this much trouble before. Usually a quick dosing of boric acid and some bait traps do the trick, but these buggers are persistant! I feel like I’ve squashed an entire colony by hand! Blech!
Vogue, I’m a professional pest control operator, and it sounds as if you’ve got an infestation, i.e., a nest of them living in your wall voids. This explains why you’re seeing them in spots where you wouldn’t expect to see them. Take a look on the outside of those rooms. Is there a problem with water in that area? Are there shrubs close to the house there, or overhanging branches that touch the exterior wall or the roof? These conditions are natural bridges for ants.
Since it sounds as if they’re nesting inside your wall voids, you need to treat inside the wall voids. Spreading anything, be it cayenne pepper or Chlorpyriphos around the perimeter of the walls will do no good. You’ll only be addressing the ones that get out into that room, not the many others that are living in the wall void and/or foraging elsewhere.
A professional should be able to treat the wall voids, thus wiping out the colony living in there, and not exposing you or your pets/children/belongings/ancestors to airborne toxins.
An exterior perimeter treatment is also a good idea, as it keeps others from getting in elsewhere. Remember, when you get ants nesting in your house, it’s a satellite colony. The main colony is usually outside somewhere, and may never be found or treated, so keeping the li’l buggers outside where they belong is important to prevent secondary infestations.
As far as pesticides go, remember a couple things about them. The toxicity is there, yes, but it’s low. The dosage to kill a bunch of ants is not significant when a larger organism is exposed to them (otherwise all the exterminators out there would not live to a ripe old age). Most pesticides have a toxicity around the same level as most of the over-the-counter cleansers you keep under your kitchen sink.
Also, a professional technician will apply the products in a way that will drastically reduce the hazards to the home’s occupants. Remember, treating inside the wall void is not only more effective in dealing with the ants, but it keeps the product out of the room, where it would do more harm than good.
Most pesticide poisonings are actually attributable to misuse and misapplications by laypersons, not professionals. Professionals know their livelihood depends on them doing the job effectively and safely. The penalties for misusing or misapplying pesticides are not to be shrugged off. The person you call should be licensed and trained, and there’s nothing wrong with you asking about that at the time.
BTW, Mangeorge, termites are not usually seen crawling around. Dunno about California, which does have different species of termites from NY State, but generally, termite swarmers (which resemble ants) swarm only in the spring and sometimes in the fall. Then they just disappear. The workers, which cause all the damage, are rarely seen, as they stay underground or in the wood itself.
The Dave-Guy
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Why did the pervert cross the road?
Because he had his … stuck in the chicken
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