Ant traps?? They dash in and out and bring their families back to hang out.
Cinnamon? Bay leaves? They don’t care.
Big guns pesticides? HA!!
I simply, honestly don’t know what to do.
And I don’t really know the actual name of these flipping Formicidae, but I really really am stumped.
Laundry pre-soaks (I use Shout).
The ones I use seem to be enzymes which dissolve the meat, leaving only the exoskeletons. You get perfect, 2-dimensional, models of ants.
I once watched as an untreated ant approached a droplet of the stuff - as soon as its front legs made contact, it stopped, raised the front legs - they wouldn’t move. Yes, I put it out of its misery.
I had ants coming in through a sliding door - I poured a bit into a channel on the frame lower track. No more ants.
If you have ant mounds and want them gone - use pie pans with the stuff in them as stepping stones to get to the mound, then a shovel and a bucket of the stuff.
Have been giving this recommendation for years, and have never gotten feedback from anyone trying it.
If you have used it on an ant colony (esp. with a shovel to ensure it gets into the protected chambers), please post.
Are these ants that come in from the outside or are the nests within your walls?
Spray the trails with vinegar. If the ant nests are somewhere inside your house, regularly spray entry points and places like all around the kitchen sink and cooker too. Of course , if the nest is large enough they will find another route so you will have to be vigilant.
This is what I did when I lived in a house with a serious ant colony and it kept them at bay.
Ants hate vinegar and it erases the scent trail. I have also read that it kills them if you spray it directly on them but I’m not sure about that.
Oh - one other thing - as elf mentioned - bees do the dance, ants lay down a scent track.
This is why you must get the oneies - twosies you see - those are scouts. If they find something good, they are the ones who bring the entire colony.
You say you’ve tried ant traps, but have you tried the Terro brand? I tried others first and they didn’t do anything, then I got the Terro ones and it fixed the problem pretty quickly. (They’re not actually traps, they’re poison dispensers and the ants bring it back to the nest…but I usually hear them called traps anyway.)
I had excellent results with Terro with massive colonies in one place that I lived. In another place I lived, I had equally massive infestations, and not a one of them would even touch the stuff. Go figure.
I’ve also had great results with the Terro stuff. Especially the syrupy liquid you leave blobs of on squares of paper. They feed on the stuff, go back and tell the colony, a ton of them come back to feed on the stuff, repeat, and pretty soon they’ve just wiped themselves out.
Another vote for vinegar. Cane vinegar didn’t work for me, but apple cider vinegar did the trick. If a crumb made it to the floor, within minutes there would be a parade of ants. Good news travels fast. I would follow the trail to see where they came from. Give it a spray, and they would not cross the vinegar barrier.
Has anyone mentioned Terro yet?
I dunno but I’ve had success using Terro in my house which has yearly antvasions. The one problem is having to fight the urge to KILL KILL KILL and instead let the traps do their work.
anteater
Yep. Terro liquid ant baits work great. They are filled with a sugary syrup with about 6% borax. I have made my own, therefore. Yes, you do have to allow the ants to feast for a few days until the stuff does its work and they quit coming to the baits, but they usually don’t come back again for a year or more.
Thanks, Terro is just terrific!! Haven’t seen any in 3-4 days. And thanks to all who said vinegar, which I would have preferred since they were in the kitchen, but they just ignored it!!
Terro is amazing stuff. I’ve had ants eat other baits and live or just ignore other baits altogether. Terro keeps 'em coming back for more until they are all dead. There are also the outdoor traps that can prevent the indoor problem altogether.
Do you perhaps have a recipe to share?
I have had success tracing their trail to the outside wall, then going outside and looking at the foundation of the house. Usually I will find a trail of ants climbing the foundation and going behind the siding into the house. I spray that trail area liberally with Orange Guard spray, but any sort of ant-repellent/killing spray should work.
But overall you just have to be really really careful about crumbs and drips. One drop of orange juice or one crumb is all it takes to attract a massive number of ants. It’s a feast for them.
I’ve done this before. A huge advantage is that in addition to being cheap, you can tape the bait traps anywhere you want – out of sight for the Martha Stewart types, away from little kid’s hands for parents, away from curious pets for pet owners etc.
Boric acid is a white powder, and I’ve found it in every big-box hardware store and most bigger-big-box grocery places with the other ant and roach killers. You’ll need:
[ul]
[li]boric acid powder[/li][li]mint jelly[/li][li]disposable drinking straws[/li][/ul]
(Why mint, I don’t know, but the person who gave me the recipe – and the exterminator who taught it to her – swear by it. I’m sure any sugary fruit jelly would work, though. Should probably skip the sugar-free kinds, since it’s the sugar that attracts them.)
In a small bowl, mix about equal parts of the jelly and the boric acid with a toothpick or other small disposable implement. The jelly will go from being clear and dark green to the appearance of toothpaste. NOTE: they are not interchangeable! 
Snip a drinking straw or three into lengths of a couple of inches, and use the toothpick or a Q-tip to stuff a little of the boric acid mixture into the ends. It’ll be kinda gloppy, and won’t look neat, but it’ll hold enough of the mixture to slowly but surely poison the ants and, more importantly, poison the queen they go back to feed.
Tape the bait traps wherever you see their trails, near potential openings or food sources. Some folks say it’s good to put some in the bathroom, too, since ants and other insects often invade homes for water and/or shelter and the free food is just a bonus.
Now, here’s the important part: be patient. You will inevitable think they’re not working, at first. Then one day you’ll realize you haven’t seen an ant in … well, not in a while. Huh! Guess I owe purplehorseshoe a thank-you gift!
(I accept cash.)
I’ve had quick success with the Terro syrup for the little sugar ants.
However the larger black ants seem to get me every spring and the Terro syrup is hit or miss. Does Terro make something better for larger ants?
94 g of a mix of half water, half corn syrup mixed with 6 g of borax works well.
Or 14 k of g in a f p d.