Got Ants?

[ransley]

I been fighting sweet ants, those little ones, in my kitchen for years, trying spraying and Tat and Ortho and baits with no luck, this year they are real, real bad getting everywhere as when they lay their scent they all seem to come back forever. I mean my cubbords, re sealed cereal boxes, my table, chair counters, me in my chair ect. Yesterday I got Grants baits and Combat baits and put them both out at maybe 5pm, I had both brands next to each other and noticed at 6pm a feeding frenzy on the Combat bait, I checked both boxes for active ingrediant and both are the same so I guess they like the attractant in Combat better, and they were still feeding at 11pm which is rare as I always remembered at night they hibernated. Well today for the first time in years NO ANTS. A relief. You guys know me, and I dont work or sell for Combat, this stuff worked and im real suprised and happpy. Now I have to do the Mice somehow. Now I can take my cereal out of the deep freeze!

[Malcolm Hoar]

Don't celebrate yet :-(

That doesn't sound like enough time to completely kill the entire colony. At least, it usually takes me several days or maybe a week once I've found a suitably delicious bait. Torro generally works best for me but that depends on species, climate, other food sources, and more.

And, whatever you do, don't put away those bait traps yet. Leave them out -- chances are you will see more visitors before you can declare victory.

All this in my not insignificant experience with the damn things.

[krw]

We had that problem (they even got *inside* the molasses bottles) the first couple of years we were in this house (new construction). I spread ant killer, outside, twice a year for two years, then once a year. No problems.

[Steve Turner]

I have the little bastards infiltrating our dishwasher, even when it's

*closed*, and the dishwasher and sink are in an island in the middle of the kitchen, smack in the middle of a very large concrete slab, surrounded on all sides by ceramic tile. And they're not getting to the island *over* the tile; they're following some subterranean path. Finding and eliminating (or baiting) their path of entry is virtually impossible unless I remove the island (or the flooring inside)... not fun.

[HeyBub]

Think cat.

As for the ants, horned toads eat them. And the horned toad generally stays out of the way - you won't know it's there.

[hrhofmann]

Gee - I never thought of you as an especially sweet type of person, based on your posts.

[norminn]

Put as much of the cereals, sweets, fatty foods in sealed containers. Clean cupboards well. I used to get one or two mice indoors in very late fall...their favorite foods were flour, cereal and dog chows. Ants loved the dog food, too. Just a few crumbs around the dog's bowl would attract a lot of ants. I used to keep most of my pasta in glass cannisters - safe storage, and kind of pretty, too. Nuts and beans in decorative tins. Flour and sugar in glass cannisters.

[norminn]

Torro always did a great job up north (FLorida not as easy). Don't need to worry about entire colonies, just those that forage in the house. A little dab of bait alongside their trail is very effective.

[gfretwell]

I think virtually all of these baits use the same poison (boric acid by a number of different trade names). The trick is to get the ants to eat it, as you have found. Florida ants are tough and I have found, figure out what they are eating and bait them with that, 12 parts attractant 1 part boric acid. I haven't seen an ant that eats sweets for 10 years. I went through a series of various protein baits. They finally got to the point that all they would eat was dog food that the dog had chewed on. I baited them with that and I haven't seen them since.

[naymin]

For years my friend has the same problem with ants. He solve it very easily by not getting damage of any parts. The method is just simple, get afew diesel from the car tank and put in the place where the ants. Next two or three day all the ants are gone and will never back till now.

------------------------------------- Basement well covers

[naymin]

For years my friend has the same problem with ants. He solve it very easily by not getting damage of any parts. The method is just simple, get afew diesel from the car tank and put in the place where the ants. Next two or three day all the ants are gone and will never back till now.

------------------------------------- Basement well covers

[Michael B]

Honey mixed with boric acid.

[ransley]

They were in my honey, maple syrup, cereal, on my computer, chair, now

1 day and a half later no ants.

[ransley]

Put bait where you see them , and under the sink and inside the island.

[ransley]

Im so alergic to cats if I go in a house with cats I know in usualy 30 minutes, i would need adrenalin if I lived with a cat i get so sick. So cats hate me and I hate cats. My dogs are to old to care about mice. Maybe a Rat Terrier, or a 12 ga.

[ransley]

If its boric acid, then just dusting inside cabinets should help.

[ransley]

I thought boric acid had to stay as a powder and when it got wet it was usless?

[ransley]

.com...

I sure do

[Hell Toupee]

Nope. That's the active ingredient in Terro nowadays. Used to be arsenic, which worked really well, but they switched to boric acid years back and it apparently works just as well or nearly as well as the arsenic did.

[Jon Danniken]

The idea is to get them to eat the boric acid, which they they regurgitate to feed the queen, who subsequently dies.

Jon