Hi,
Mild weather has brought ants back to our kitchen. This has been an on/off problem for years. I would like to annihilate them once and for all.
Have built up a nice collection of powders and liquids over the years...never entirely effective and I'd like to open up a new "front" in the war.
I see on Amazon ultrasonic pest repellers (search for B078KNRF15) which claim to work against ants.
I am dubious. Anybody got experience of ultrasonics for ant/insect repelling? Does it work?
David
Have you tried boric acid? Worked an absolute treat in our house last year, unlike all the toxic gunge I tried before.
Dont know about the UK but we have a seemingly secret stuff here called cockroach killer which it seems can only be got at a Chinese supermarket it is not on the shelf, they get it from under the counter if asked, it is a small green box with 5 phials of powder that looks like sand,they insist that it is safe for humans but they do suggest you don't eat it. chinese writing on box but enough english for use.
50:50 Borax and Icing sugar. You need something they take back to their colony.
My experience with any ultrasonic pest device is that they don't work.
Is that not a little strong on the borax? Too much borax and the ants don't take it. I would have said 20:80, made into a slurry and balls of cotton wool dipped into it and placed around where they run.
I wouldn't use them anyway. Just because you can't hear a sound, it doesn't mean it's not damaging your hearing.
Commercial Nippon used to work OK. My recollection is that it contained some pyrethrum but certainly mainly sugar and could have included borax.
I tried one, and the cats and squirrels were completely unaffected. However, my partner's rather younger ears were sufficiently sensitive to find it seriously irritating, so it didn't stay in use very long.
Chris
+1
Boric acid, not borax. From what I read, the former is more effective. After
2 or 3 days of feeding frenzy, the ants vanished completely.I was advised that anything that attracts ants is best used outside the house as that is where they first came from.
Wrongly.
I keep borax on hand for other purposes, so that's what I use. It does seem to work.
Another thing that works is a can of fruit minus the fruit. I found that out by accident. I don't like to kill them, but nothing else gets them out and they're a real problem.
NT
When we had our boiler & HW replaced there were a couple of buckets of fine sand behind them. Several years worth of ants.
Borax is a specific insecticide. It affects a part of their chemistry that vertebrates don't have.
Andy
You probably can't. Which sort are they external garden ants coming in or other indoor ones like pharaoh ants?
If you tidy up the kitchen so that there are no easy sources of food the ants will not bother you. It can be surprising where they can get. A "sealed" glass jar of candied peel proved not to be as sealed as we thought and some enterprising ant scout found the weak spot.
One summer evening there was a trail of ants from the door to the jar and back again.
I can't see it working - at least not at sound pressure levels that won't permanently damage human hearing.
Not really ultrasonic if you can hear it?
Sub-harmonics?
Chris
I've found that you can hear them as the switch on/off but not necessarily when they have been fully on.
if not fully on they may not be producing just untrasonic.
In the same way I can run faster than usain bolt but can't when he is running fast. I can also run faster than a formula 1 car provided it's parked.
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