Invasion Of The Ants!
Posted on October 10, 2007 by Melissa
Filed Under Household
Last night our home got overtaken by ants. Seriously.
We have had some ants in the kitchen before but you expect to have them in the kitchen, especially since we leave out cat food for our kitties. We would vacuum them up and treat with repellant and the problem would go away for a while. It was never a huge amount of ants anyways, just enough to be noticeable and annoying.
Yesterday, when I woke up, I noticed there were a few little ants on the carpet near my bedroom dresser. I thought it was strange but there were only two or three so I thought it was a fluke. After inspecting and failing to find more invaders I vacuumed the area and went on my merry little way.
That evening, as I got ready to go to bed, I walked around near my dresser and saw a massive pile of ants in the middle of the carpet. Apparently, a kitty had vomited while I was gone during the day and it attracted a ton of ants. It was horrible! I vacuumed them all up and treated the area. I also set out traps. I thought my saga was over but it had just begun.
So after taking care of that situation I headed to the master bathroom for my nighttime routine and as soon as I opened the door I called for my husband. There was a stream of ants running along the edges of the walls. Or maybe it was more like a river because there were thousands of them. We have a kitty isolated for medication in the master bathroom right now so we have kitty food in there. We have had food in there for almost a month with no problems but I guess those days are over. The ants seemed to materialize out of no where! We saw no sign of them that morning as we showered and got ready for the day but by that evening it was a different story.
The bathroom situation was much worse than the bedroom so I got my husband to help take care of that ordeal. After putting the kitty in a different room we vacuumed all those ants up and treated the entire area. We determined that they were coming in from behind the cabinets so we threw some baits back there, hoping it might help.
I have never had an ant problem before this year so I’m not sure how to actually get rid of them. I kill them or bait them but they seem to come back after a while. I wouldn’t think it would be this hard to get rid of ants but I hear that sometimes people battle these pests to no avail. I have found that the baits don’t seem to work long term like they promise. We have tried different brands and the ants still return in the kitchen. We have treated the outside in the past and have some new outdoor baits we will try. Now that the bedroom and bathroom are ant zones it really feels like we are being invaded.
Eric blames this problem on the fact that we stopped our bug service last year to help cut costs. I’m not sure if that is really the cause or if it is a coincidence. Either way, I find it hard to believe that we can’t stop these ants without paying for an exterminator.
Today I’m heading to the store to see if they have anything else that might help. I considered trying the inexpensive borax and sugar trick but these ants are clearly attracted to proteins and I’m wondering if sugar is the best way to bait them. Plus, whatever we use has to be completely safe around pets (e.g. no open lids of poison or dusting of cayenne).
I will share what ends up working, whether it be the expensive store-bought solutions or the cheap home-grown ideas. The ants haven’t been back today but unfortunately that means nothing. They could just be regrouping for another invasion.
Have any of you had to fight this battle? Do you have any tips that will get rid of these pests without breaking the bank? Suggestions are welcome!
Image Source: the bridge
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Every year we get ants in our kitchen and bathroom. I have no idea where they come from but I get rid of them the same way and it REALLY works. Mix sugar with Borax(20 mule team, in the laundry isle) sit it it a pile on the counter or floor near where you see the ants. The ants will come to the sugar but will take the borax with them back to the nest. They will eat it there and kill off the queen. Once the queen is dead they will move off in search of another and more out of your house. I swear it works!
Nice Pic of Zipperhead, by the way.
Every year when the weather changes, we also get ants. I use Terro liquid ant traps inside where they are coming in, and on the outside I use Ortho outside spray and I spray it all around the outside of the home where the ground meets the house, seems to do the trick every year. A lot less expensive than a terminator as well. Good luck!
Here’s a quick, simple, effective solution. Follow the ant trail back to the point of entry into your home, which will probably be a door or window — and simply dust the outside edge of that threshold liberally with cinnamon, laying down a fairly solid line of the spice. Really. Ants will not cross cinnamon. (I’ve read that black pepper, red cayene and other spices can be used, but cinnamon has worked fine for me.) Generally, one appllication has been sufficient.
I get ants periodically coming through my back patio doors to get to cat vomit or crumbs left by my child at the dinner table.
My favorite, and always effective, remedy is borax and sugar in a shallow bowl in the path of the ants. It really does work, though it can take up to 2 weeks for the nest to die. In my experience, even the ants going after cat vomit will go for the borax and sugar.
While I’m waiting for the borax to work, I wash the floors with a cleaner that has lavender oil in it. They hate lavender, too, and erases their scent trail so they can’t find their way back to the food source. But don’t lavender the path to the borax. Leave that part of the trail. You _want_ them to find that!
To keep the cats out fo teh borax I simply lean something against the wall over the borax-dish, and the cats can’t reach it accidentally. They generally don’t try.
All of the above suggestions are great and I’d like to add one more ‘odd, but it works!’ solution–cucumber peels!
Here’s more info on the subject: http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/natural-pest-controls.html
Good luck!
Lemon Joy dish soap. Seriously! a guy that I used to work with put just a touch of Lemon Joy along the areas that the ants were coming in (window sills, door edges, etc.). Another coworker and I weren’t quite believing him when he told us about this, so he called his wife, handed us the phone and had us ask her if what he said was true. It was! Hope this my help you out!
@Everyone - I am thrilled to have gotten so many great ideas! Although the ants are on hiatus in the bathroom and bedroom I will try these tricks now in anticipation of their return. I guess it is a good thing I have ants in several different places so I can try these out and see what works for us. Thanks again everyone!
@Molly - I will try this trick in my kitchen pantry. I have seen ants come and go from there before and I think it is safer to have this mixture behind a closed door because I have curious cats. I bought some of the Borax this week. Thanks!
@Kyle - I bought some Terro baits and had Eric spray around the outside of the house yesterday. Because these traps look safe (and I checked online, they are) I will use them near my cat’s food bowl to get those ants.
@Deborah - I have some “old” ground cinnamon and the perfect place to try this trick. According to the ASPCA cinnamon is safe around cats so I tried this out. I had three ants wandering in my kitchen so I sprinkled a circle around them. Sure enough they wouldn’t across it. I have sprinkled some of this spice in and around a known entrance near my garage door.
@HistoricStitcher - Do you boil it into a liquid or leave the sugar and borax dry? Today I’m going to mop my bathroom floor with my normal cleaner but I’ll add some lavender oil I have to see if that works. The cleaning solution is lemon so it might smell funny but I don’t care as long as it works!
@Raven - We don’t eat much cucumber but oddly enough we have some in the house right now since I needed it for a dressing I made for the Tightwad Wednesday. I will try leaving some cucumber peels in the kitchen as well. My only concern with this is that they will start to turn and will need to be replaced often. Good cheap suggestion though!
@Hannah - I don’t have lemon Joy handy but I have some orange Dawn. If these other ideas don’t work that will be next on my list to try. I know ants also hate orange oil so maybe that might work after all.
We had a horrible small black ant problem, still kinda do I guess. We’ve found a few thing that have helped. The Terro traps are the big thing, (it’s a mixture of sugar and borax already) they take a bit to work but they do work. Borax is a problem around pets and kids (Keep them out of it) and I like that it’s contained better than when I make it myself. I didn’t have much luck personally with cinnamon, vinegar sprays, cucumbers and some of the other stuff. I wanted to. :( Hubby and I do go around and spray Raid or one of the other sprays when when see ant trails heading up the bricks on the outside of the house too. We’ve also caulked as many holes as we could find, including pulling out the dishwasher and putting caulk on the end of a yardstick to get to a hole back behind it. One that we never thought would work and has is a sound thingy put out by Sunbeam. We figured we’d try it since it was only about $20 and we found it at CVS. It just plugs into an outlet and we were having a big problem in our bathroom and couldn’t get behind the sink cabinet where they were coming in to fill in the holes. It makes a soft clicking sound and doesn’t bother us or our dogs. I also put one in the kitchen and it doesn’t bother the birds (we have an open ranch style house with the birds nearby in the livingroom). So far no major infestations, just the occasional ant that we get rid off and no major trails. I haven’t had to put the Terro back out for this year either.
@JJ - Welcome and I’m glad you commented!
It sounds like you have had quite a battle with these pests. It’s good to hear that you have also had luck with the Terro baits. I have never seen the sound deterrent unit for ants (I have for mice) but it seems interesting. Maybe that is another solution!
We just bought an older house with 52 ac in town. The basment has water in it so we hired a crew to take care of that problem. When taking up all the old carpet last night I found a ton of black ants on the floor under the carpet. When mowing the grass that was at least 5 foot tall I also seen these things that I thought at the time was large black and red spiders now I find out they are ants. What can one do to get rid of of these large black and red ants in the yard? I’m going to try the sugar and borax trick inside but not sure what to do about such a large front and back yard that seems to be infested by these thing. Help!!