How to get rid of ants?
 

Well.............if I had a dollar for every ant that's decided to move in overnight, I'd be a rich girl. I have no idea where they came from but all of a sudden the bathroom, the kitchen and the laundry room has hundreds of little black ants running all over the place.

What is a good way to get rid of them? Since it's the kitchen, I'd hate to bugbomb the place but traditional remedies like mint and cinnamon do not seem to have the desired effect. Any thoughts? :shocked:

i have heard that sprinkling baby powder on the trail or maybe even on them ?? and its supposed to get rid of them...
(ours was sugar ants)

samm
i think an exterminator told me this

yep...i had an infestation of tiny sugar ants about a month or so ago. i mixed up some borax with some pancake syrup and the ants fed on it and were gone in a week. i did some "research" while shopping for remedies last time this happened and found out that the boric acid type ant baits are the least toxic and the only ones i saw that were approved for use in hospitals.

give it a try. it should work on most ants except for the carpenter ants.

I have also heard that wipping down everything with vinegar should do it. >Thanks Marc

Second the idea of using boric acid.

Most hardware stores sell a product [I think it is Torre or torro] that comes in a bottle and you put a drop of it on a little square of paper and lay close to their path. They take this back to their bed and they are gone. We have had the same little bottle for 5 years or more. Hope you get rid of them. Sam

The boric acid works!

It's called "Terro" and it's Boric Acid in Corn Syrup
It's much cheaper to make your own.

Don't put too much Boric Acid, because you want them to live long enough to feed it to the Queen


http://www.ehow.com/way_5185985_bori...#ixzz0wvYDcnEZ

I had the same thing happen. I thought they were the small sugar ants, we have another name for them. Hope yours isn't what mine turned out being. Mine were argentinian ants. They will run fire ants out. They do not sting. All of the suggestions about sweets with borax disn't help. These ants were after blood, actually. You could lay a piece of meat down and in a couple of minutes they will cover it. They will kill small animals. Sometimes they will go after plants. They can completely kill a 6ft haelthy tomato plant overnight.
I have been waging war, not winning yet. Anyone know something that might slow down an argentian ant?

I just used Terro to get rid of ants in my kitchen. It took a while but they are gone now.

Pancho maybe you could mix borax in the meat or in blood.

Orange oil will do it too.

I had some kind of ants getting into my tomatoes. I sprinkled some diatomaceous earth that has some ant bait in it around the base of the plants. In a few days they were all gone and haven't been back. I also sprinkled some on my potato plants, to kill some kind of orange and black bug. It worked there too.

I ended up bug bombing every room they were in and the attic to finally get rid of them all this spring, nothing else worked - I think they enjoyed the Terro but it never killed them.

I tried mixing borax with chicken gizard and had limited luck. They ignored it after the first day. Tried borax with chicken livers next. They didn't even try it.

I am going out today and spray everything that stands still. If it stops raining.

Sevin dust seems to work a little. Doesn't get rid of them but they wont bother anything that is covered with it. Problem is I have to repeat after every rain and it has rained every day for the last 2 weeks.

The funny thing I sprinkled ground cinnamon in the house and they left immediately. They stayed out until I left some okra in the sink. They came back then and just waded through the cinnamon.

Around here the humidity is high. You can sprinkle de one day and the next morning it is a rock. The bugs just walk right across it.

I will try it as soon as I can find some orange oil. Any suggestion on where I can find it.

In the last week or so I have had quite a few nests of cockatiels and parakeets hatch out. By day 2 the ants kill every chick.

Cayenne pepper (the powdered kind) around your windows and doors, any where else they might be coming in will stop them from coming in.

pancho, where do you live that you have these ants?

I have what we call trailing ants here. They are everywhere even in my kitchen sometimes but not to bad yet but with this rain they come in more. Last year they were really bad and I did boric acid, sugar and water. Put holes in the jar lid and put a couple cotton balls wet in the boric acid mixture and put the lid on. Lay it on its side and the ant will come to it. I dropped a few drops on the kitchen counter but did not notice it and when I went in the kitchen the ants were drinking it as if they were animals at a drinking trough. I had an exterminator tell me to spray windex on them and it would kill them. It worked.

I've heard of borax and peanut butter being recommended a lot.

I don't even mind ants so much, as long as they aren't fire ants.

I had an open jar of hummingbird water on the counter when those ants were in my kitchen. In a matter of days dead ants almost covered the surface of the water.

I wonder if a person could put some blood or liver in a pan of water and then add a couple of drops of dish soap to get rid of the surface tension. Without that tension they cannot walk on the water and drown.

In the middle of Ms.

Look around OUTSIDE. Chances are you will find an anthill homebase. Get out the garden sprayer and give a "DIE SUCKERS, DIE!" drenching, pushing the wand deep into the nest. Lay a ten foot barrier swath of something like Ortho Max around the house. Inside, use the boric acid and bait. If you don't find the mother nest, you'll just have repeated foraging expeditions.

This type of any doesn't really care for anything sweet. Now drop a piece of meat, even a drop of blood, and they will be right thwere within minutes.

I didn't mind ants before, even fire ants. I could control them.
These do not have an ant hill to poison. If you attempt to poison the just split into many different nests. Their nests are everywhere but they are small. The whole area is one big ant hill. All of the ants seem to get along real well. From researching them I learned the whole area was just one giant ant hill.

These ants do not have a central homebase. They may have hundreds of small beds. All of the ants are related, come from the same place.

I have followed the ants which I see crawling along my fence completely around my property. They continue along the neighbor's fence on all sides. Can't really tell if they are coming or going. Just thousands of small ants running along the same track.

At least they do not sting.

DE would work well but i wouldnt use it indoors since it has a jagged crystalline structure like asbestos when viewed under a microscope - wouldnt want to inhale it.

I get invaded by carpenter ants once a year. I scatter those small ant traps under all appliances where the dogs cant get to them, and the ants are gone within a week.

Like I told another poster. DE is completely useless here. The humidity is very high. You can put out DE one evening and by the next morning it is a solid rock. The bugs can crawl all over it and live to die of old age. The only way it will kill a bug is if you hit the bug with it.

Try corn meal or grits (finely milled). Or even oats, not the 1 minute oats. They will take it back to their home base and eat it. It will bind them up and will eventually kill them. You dont have to worry about pets or kids getting into it either.

These ants I have are meat eaters. They won't touch much of anything else. They do not like sweets or any type of vegetable. That is except for the tomato plants they destroyed. They ate the stalks from the inside out. Didn't touch the tomatos.

When we spot ants in the house we get out the vacuum and the crevice tool and suck'em up, till we don't see any more.

Borax as in 20 Mule Team? I keep meaning to get boric acid but I already have plenty of borax, if it works I'd be thrilled. We're overrun with ants in the yard!

There you go, now you got half the problem fixed!

We're having ants real bad also but am controlling them. Haven't been able to eliminate the nest yet but we kill a bunch everyday by spraying them with diluted Dawn dishwashing detergent. Just get you a spray bottle and fill it up with water and put in about a tablespoon of Dawn detergent. This not only kills ants, but also knats, waspers, fly's, slugs, and many other bugs. The secret is that many bugs have a protected oil film over their bodies that repels water. When sprayed with Dawn it removes this film and covers their body with water and most of them drown immediately. Some will take a while or some extra spraying. It's a very cheap bug killer and no danger to humans. (that I know of)

You all try it, you'll be amazed! I'm trying to find a tank sprayer to fit on my garden hose and plan on washing down my whole yard with Dawn.

Should add that I have used it in my garden and on my fruit trees to kill blister beetles, stink bugs, horn worms, and japenese beetles.

Guinies took care of our ants

that's exactly what i used. go for it!

what about those big black ants? this house is new, i can't believe i have ants, but here they are. these puppies are big! some are not as much, but i have no idea where they come in at. so can/should i spray the whole perimeter of the house, and with what? i have sugar water/borax mix sitting out now for a few days, and they do seem fewer, but are still here.

?

Those are Carpenter Ants.
They generally nest in trees

It takes a while to get rid of them, so just keep the bait out

Neither of those things alone will kill ants

Ants in the house are a symptom of something wrong. Fix that and there will be no ants.

Condensation in the wall attracts carpenter ants.

Treat the outside perimeter of the house and you will get rid of them. Amdro works pretty good for all ants.

amdro? what is that? a spray? buy it where? thanks

i have looked online and see that any standing water, drops in the sink even, are enough to keep the ants coming. i keep a pretty clean houe, but if that's all it takes, i'm sunk!