It seems that the ants of my neighborhood have all decided that my desk is a cool place to hang. I have tried everything I can think of to get rid of them. I don’t eat or drink at my desk, in fact, there isn’t anything on it except my computer and some textbooks. I have sprayed it down with windex several time, at least five. I even sprayed some up into where I think their nest might be(inside my window pane). I have placed ant bates around my desk and even one right by the opening of the probable nest. I keep my room clean at all times, and I have cleared everything off of my desk to make sure there isn’t something that might be drawing them there. I can’t use ant spray because I don’t want my cat to get sick. Any suggestions on how to get rid of the smelly buggers?
A month or so ago, I had a problem with sugar ants in my house. Sprays don’t work, because they kill the ants that you see … not the 99% of the colony that you don’t. Besides, if you keep on spraying and killing, the queen will start spitting out more baby ants to make up for the loss. I live in an area that used to be an old orange grove, and ants are a problem in the neighborhood.
I used a bait called “Ant-Kil” that was damn effective. I dabbed a few drops in the trails and in other places where I sighted ants. A week and a half later, the colony was gone.
Molasses with a bit of boric acid will also do the trick – not enough to kill 'em right off, but enough to make them die hours later … enough time to let 'em get back to the colony, where their corpses will be eaten by the other ants, the cannibal ants will die, ad so on up the line to the queen.
An anteater? 
(I’m sorry, someone had to do it.)
Zev Steinhardt
I read somewhere that the ants return usually based on the scent trail left by previous ants. Apparently Windex doesn’t remove it but the solution I read was to use vinegar to remove the trail.
It sounds like you may have Argentine Ants. We have had a problem with them for the past few months. The weirdest thing about these ants is they dont seem to be particularly attracted to obvious food sources. Sure they attack the garbage can now and again, but the bathroom floor and walls ???
I can recommend a professional ant/ roach spray called HOT SHOT. Spray this stuff along their trail and into the opening that they are coming from. We used it in the Kitchen several weeks ago and they have not returned there yet. It works for “up to 12 weeks” and although we have not been able to eliminate the colony, we can pretty much keep them isolated to remote areas of the house.
I’m afraid we’ll need to get an exterminator but I might have to look this Ant-Kil elmwood speaks of.
Water 
. In dry months Argentine Ants come looking for moisture, in wet months they try to escape it.
In point of fact ( or slightly informed opinion if you prefer 
), Argentine Ants, owing to some peculiarities of their society and lack of native checks, are an indestructible force of nature in California that cannot be stopped, only slowed. I find a combination of ant stakes and killing the heavy concentrations, followed by a judiciously teensy spray of insecticide at the points of entry ( cuts the scent trail as someone already has mentioned ) usually serves to keep them from becoming an overwhelming pest.
But if you just have a small number of random stragglers, I’d just learn to live with them if at all possible - Otherwise you might well go insane as you try and fail to completely eliminate them.
- Tamerlane
Oil soap & water. Or a good insecticide soap.
Leave a thin layer of the oil soap on the table. Most alkykine soaps kill insects quite well.
The Master Speaks–
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_064.html
Maybe this can help. Search the archive, because Unca Cecil has addressed similar issues in the past. 
I swear by the brand “Grant’s Kills Ants” I found it when I lived in California and had constant ant problems. A few stakes of arsenic coated sugar, and they would be gone for months. Nothing else worked remotely as well.
I moved to Ohio and couldn’t find it anywhere. After a few failures with Raid and other brands, I scoured the web to order it. I found it at Cole Hardware.
you will have to locate their nest and dose it with insecticide to get rid of them once and for all. follow the trail of ants back to a where they are all coming from. the nest might be inside of a wall, it might be outside in the ground. when you find it, really drench it good.
We use bait discs containing boric acid and sugar. Very effective on the ants and no danger to the mammilian residents of our household.
I get ants in the house every year around this time. Just do what I do - wait for the spiders to move in. By midsummer, we usually have a friendly arachnid or two in the corners of our bathroom. The ants disappear right quick, and then the spiders die in the fall. All natural!
molasses, boric acid, cayanne pepper
I used to have a terrible ant problem in my house. I tried just about every poison imaginable (including sprays, Grant’s baits, other store bought baits). What finally worked was a tip in the local paper’s advice column for homemade baits:
Mix a thick paste of mint jelly and boric acid (both available at just about any grocery store). Cut 2-3" lengths of drinking straw and stuff them full of the paste. Place one of these little baits anywhere you see ants (especially near any trails).
Within a couple of weeks, the ants were gone without a trace (only a few were dead near the baits). I’m not sure if the jelly needs to be mint jelly, but that is what was recommended to me, and it worked like a charm.
never tried it myself but i herd it works, if u know where the hill is, boil some orange peels and pour it into the colony they will die or if u know where they are coming in from, make a line of chili powder and they supposedly will never cross it…
I’ve had good success with plain old borax powder. However, it seems that Argentine ants like sweets, but don’t like cinnamon.
Here are some bait recipes for various types of ant.
UC Davis has a pretty nice Ant Identification Site. That should help you figure out exactly what kind of ant you are up against.
I tried everything. Month after month. No effect.
Until … Borax and sugar.
Thousands of ants, millions of ants, streamed one after the other, … streamed to their own doom. - Mwah hah hah!
Next day - no more ants. Period. Ever.
DaveW0071 ! Where are you?