Ant infestation

[Tabby]

There's been ants in this house since I moved in. Up until lately, they've invaded the kitchen during the summer months. I put ant traps by the garbage and under the fridge etc. and it more or less keeps them under control. But this winter I've had ants upstairs. All winter. It started in my ensuiete bathroom. One or two ants each night. Then one was discovered in the main bathroom. Then I saw a row of them along the baseboard in the main upstairs hallway. Then DSD had some chocolates in her room that became covered in ants within an hour. Now I am killing/vacuuming roughly 20 ants a day on my upper level. I have yet to see an ant in the kitchen all winter.

Where are they coming from? The chocolate was a valentine thing - no other food has been brought upstairs. How do I get rid of them? I can't even find ant traps in the stores right now since it's out of season. I have some ant poison but I can't just leave it anywhere since I have cats. I don't know what they like about our bathrooms but that's the most common place to find them. There and along the baseboards in the hallway between them. It's really getting very creepy.

Anyone with experience battling ants? They are ordinary small black, non-biting ants.

[KathyK]

I have had great success with cucumber peel placed around the perimeter of the rooms. Apparently, ants really hate it and will pack their little bags and head on out.

[Tabby]

Do you just slice a bit of peel of the cucumber and lay it around? How much do I need? Doesn't it get moldy?? I'll do anything!

[KathyK]

Yes, lay slices of peel around. It dries up before it gets moldy.

[Artemis]

I've used talc powder. Ants avoid it like the plague. Haven't heard of using cucumber peel - I'll try it - next time I see the little buggers.
Food doesn't seem to be relevant. They sometimes invade a downstairs craft room. No reason for being there that I can fathom.

[Tabby]

I don't have any cucumber (or talc powder) in the house right now but maybe I'll stop on my way home to get some.

Where do you think the colony might be?

[Suzon]

We have had great luck with this stuff. I bought some at a flea market in Berkeley. You just draw lines where you think the ants are coming from.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/2916539900 ... ps&lpid=82

[Tabby]

Thanks Suzon! Is that stuff safe to use with cats in the house?

[no.stirrups]

Good luck! When we had a similar issue we hired an exterminator that promised they'd come back for free if the problem wasn't eradicated. After his 4th time back, he conceded defeat and refunded our money. Shortly thereafter we happened to have the porch roof replaced, and the nest was found there! Same kind of ants you have - not carpenter ants - but the wood was rotted and soft enough for them to move in. Once that was resolved we never had another problem, but it wasn't anywhere that anyone thought to look.

[Mirabella]

Buy ant traps on Amazon.

[Suzon]

Thanks Suzon! Is that stuff safe to use with cats in the house?

Yes. We've never had a problem with the animals.

[avma]

I can't stand having ants in my house. It's the idea that if you see one...more will come. We had a bad infestation once in our old home. I could see the nests in the planters out front of our unit. I tried the ant traps...and I'd watch a few ants walk in and out...but nothing happened. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and bought some ant spray from here http://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/crawling-insects/ant-control-products. I bought stuff that you spray on the outside of your house. It worked instantly. We also sprayed the nests...gone within a day. Beyond satisfying.

[Tarlo Farm]

I found a tiny container of a clear liquid that I put in caps of pop bottles and old pill bottles. Those then got placed way in the back of cabinets and behind the refrigerator. In two days, no ants!

[SnowHorse]

I'm bringing this back up since I made a discovery the other day and I've tested and re-tested it, and it's *awesome*!

Murphy's Oil Soap (the liquid kind):

I've used this for cleaning up little accidents - I have six cats in the house so someone is always hacking up hairballs etc. and having the soap ready mixed with water in a squirt bottle is an easy way to clean up. I have (wood) laminate floors so I also mop my floors with it.

Anyway -

the other day I had a small spot to clean up, and it had ants all over it. I sprayed the soap water on it and ALL the ants died.
I sprayed it at the spot they were coming in between wall/floor, and NO ants since (several days ago, maybe even a week?).
At this time of the year they're coming in from everywhere, so I've sprayed it to those spots - and nobody's coming in any more!

I love it because I already had it and use it, and now I found a great cure for the ants, too. I could not be happier! I've used vinegar/water solution before because I don't want to put toxic things where my cats will walk, but it stinks and it really really doesn't work NEAR as well as the soap.

So there.
Try it, you might like it!

[orono]

We put diatomaceous earth around the house when we see them, and outside if we have any idea where they might be coming in from.

[mld02004]

My mother sprinkles cinnamon wherever she finds them and they avoid it like the plague.

[goldhorse]

We have had them come in through electrical outlets in the bathrooms.. So we removed the covers and put poison in there. I also have found that spraying some kind of cleaner like 409 on the trail will disrupt their homing olfactory apparatus. I think that Murphy's oil soap is working by the same mechanism. They are driven indoors when it's wet outside.

[bits]

Just yesterday I saw two ants on my husbands bathroom sink. No idea where they came from so I killed them and didn't think about them again. This morning I turned the iron on and saw a few more. The iron was on his sink. When I picked the iron up, they came pouring out of the IRON!!! They had totally moved into the iron complete with eggs and everything. I could NOT believe it. Weirdest thing I've EVER seen before. Why on earth would ants move into an iron in the middle of a bathroom countertop nowhere close to a door or window or anything. Since then I saw where other people have had ants move into irons. I don't get it. Anyway, we're now onto appliance number four in a month. First the washing machine, then the vacuum cleaner, then the refrigerator and now we need a new iron.

[cb06]

Borax. It's cheap, it's easy and it works.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/molecules ... -Borax.htm

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/201 ... borax.html

[Tabby]

I never did find my ants but they were definitely entering through my bathroom. I ended up spraying poison along baseboards and across the threshold of doorways. This trapped them inside my bathroom and I would find 6 or 8 dead ones every day for about a week and then they disappeared.

[Ryans Friend]

Sympathies. Our house was built on an ant hill. We were the first occupants. When we moved in, winters were okay, but warm temps were iffy. After a few years, ants became a problem in summer. Then they started marching through the house in winter. They would march into the freezer and stack their corpses up as a testament to futility. We had a bevvy of pets so I was reluctant to use drastic measures. But I relented about 5 years ago when I was making Christmas dinner and the brave little ants were marching toward the roast. Formicidae were not on the menu. I called Mr. No Ants and have not looked back.

[hoopoe]

the one and only time I had a ant issue was way back in the day of a little house

I finally resorted to using a flea bomb in the crawl space under the house

that did the trick for sure