Got Ants!?

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Waterwings

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Northwest KY. Fairweather angler
With all the rain we've had, a group of small ants (I've always called them piss-ants) decided to visit our house. This is the first time in the 13 yrs we've lived here that we've had this problem. There have been a few ants on the kitchen counter near the sink, and all I can figure is they entered the house around the holes where the water supply lines come up from under the house (gonna caulk around them now). We tried the insect spray and the ant bait traps. I watched the ants enter the traps and then come out ::) . So, my wife got on-line and looked at home remedies. She found one that called for using Apple Cider Vinegar, so she tried it yesterday. She put it in a spray bottle and sprayed the affected areas........................no ants now! Apparently it repels them and kills them if they get in it. The smell of the vinagar dissipates after awhile, and on the plus side, it's better than smelling the insect spray.
 
i'll have to try that, i usually use the white rectangular bait traps from wal mart and they work well for me, but now i'm afraid my dog might get a hold of one.
 
Some of them ant traps are made so the ant enters then leaves.The ant brings the poison back to it's house and it kills other ants.
 
Zum said:
Some of them ant traps are made so the ant enters then leaves. The ant brings the poison back to it's house and it kills other ants.


I thought about that and double-checked the box and it didn't state anything about that, so I'm thinking the traps were just an off-brand inferior product my wife found at the local dollar store. There was one un-used trap left and it went in the trash when I made my usual Saturday dump run.
 
I refuse to use any sort of poison or pesticides for a number of reasons. And we had aunts all the time. After research and a bunch of phone calls to various organic pest control places I found that Diatomaceous Earth works the most effectively. Better still it is completely non-toxic, heck you can eat the stuff. Diatomaceous Earth is the fossilized remains of diatoms - a type of pre-historic algea. It kills the ants (and other hard bodied insects) by cutting them with microscopic sharp 3edges causing them to dehydrate and die.

Does not work instantaneously but if you leave a small amount near the place the ants are gaining entry or most scene, you will no longer have ants after about 24 hrs.

Better still it will not harm the fish and other critter as it is essentially just dirt.
 
Wish this thread had been around last year. Those little #(^%* took over our kitchen last spring.
 
yeast, powder sugar and borax works good for me. mix the same amount and put near heavy traffic area.
the ants pack it back to the nest for the sugar and yeast. the borax kills the ants as they eat the sugar and they feed the yeast the the young and as it grows
pop goes the ant.
 
I have heard of a lot of people having them around here in the last two weeks. Knock on wood, we haven't had a single one and I normally have at least one batch of them a year. I normally find them pretty quick and knock them out but I hate seeing them in the house.

They've probably all drowned in the moat around my house. :lol:
 
KMixson said:
If they are fire ants, use instant grits on them. They eat it and as it expands, they die.

Corn grits
Ineffective. The theory is that the fire ants will eat the dry corn grits, drink some water, and then die as the corn grits expand inside them. The image of greedy little ants exploding like popcorn inside their mounds is very compelling. The problem is that fire ant workers only drink liquids; they are incapable of ingesting solids. Fire ant larvae will eat solid food, but they chew it up and mix it with saliva just like we do before they swallow it. Grits simply don't work, so any perceived effects are due to mound disturbance and colony movement. (Don't look so skeptical—it's true!)

from: https://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-2-9-119,00.html and several other places.

We don't have fire ants in my neck of the woods but I use a granular insecticide that can be found at Lowes for outside ant problems. The ants pack the pellets back to the colony and it wipes them all out. Make sure that you scatter it around the mound and not right on top of it or simply scatter it in their travel path if the mound is unable to be located.
 
I just read that I'm not supposed to but thats how I get rid of my old mixed gas.Drive a pick axe into the mound a few times,pour the gas and light it.Kills the grass but know ants.
 

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