A short video on AOL claims that regular (uncooked) oatmeal spread along the base boards (or where ever you find, a trail of ants) will kill them. According to the video, the ants eat the oatmeal and as soon as they drink any water, they will swell up and burst (or at least, die)!:dubious:
Any Doper entomologists out there, care to enlighten us, with the truth?
Is that the right word, entomologist?
Thanks Astro!
I kind of thought it sounded like big heaping portion of bullshit!:dubious: And of course, I just knew that the intelligentsia here at the SDMB, would be able to provide me/us with the facts! 
(The “taint of creation”. That just cracks me up, every time I see it!:D)
Also, “entomologist” is the right word, though if you want to get more fancy and specific you could ask for a myrmecologist.
Hell no, it won’t work. You’ll get many more ants because you’re setting out a smorgasbord for them.
mozchron, entomologist.
Use a boric acid/sugar solution to kill ants. Soak cotton balls in the solution and place the cotton balls along their scent trails. Keep the balls moist. If you are no so inclined, try a commercial product such as Terro Ant Killer. It’s the same boric acid/sugar mixture.
Whatever route you take, if you have any pets, you must keep them away. We covered ours with upside down cardboard case cartons from soda/beer cans, then place five pound weights on top.
Oatmeal does work wonderfully as an insecticide, but not using that method. Try dropping a large sack of it on the ants from a height of 5 or 6 feet instead.
I have found that using diatomaceous earth has been very effective. I had ants, silverfish, centipedes, and spiders in my apartment when I moved in. I spread DE under the baseboards (in my place they’re 1/4 inch above the floor) in the kitchen and bedroom. Ants and silverfish disappeared, and I’ve only seen a couple spiders and centipedes since a year ago.
Get the food-grade stuff (it’s used as an additive in flour), not the pool filter stuff. Safe around people and pets, it works mechanically rather than chemically by penetrating the shell of anything with an exoskeleton and causing it to dehydrate and die. Be careful not to make it puff into the air when spreading it, snorting the stuff isn’t recommended. I just put some on the floor and spread it with a broom and pushed it under the boards. It has a texture a lot like talc or chalk, just a teeny bit grittier.
Good question! I saw the same thing from the same source. I didn’t give it much credence, but sometimes those little tidbits get stored away and later you forget where you heard them.