Posted on 04/21/2018 9:00:54 PM PDT by SamAdams76
It's the beginning of spring and this is when ants try to get into the houses. Not sure why now and not middle of winter when it is cold.
Stepping on them and killing them when you see them makes you feel good for a minute or two but it does not solve the overall ant problem. For there are THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of ants from where they came from, all intent on servicing the QUEEN at all costs.
Normally I just tolerate the springtime ants, content to step on them when I see them and flush their dead bodies down the toilet. But this spring, I'm putting my house up for sale and do not want prospective owners seeing ants crawling across the floor. For that might make them want to offer me less money for my otherwise pristine home.
So I went out to the Home Depot and purchased some liquid ant traps (six to a carton!). You just rip off one end of it and set it down on the floor. This liquid - actually the consistency of sugary syrup - is like crack cocaine for ants!
Within an hour of setting the traps, those ants were swarming bigtime. The traps actually brought MORE ants into my home and the wife was reduced to using the guest bathroom because she was really freaked out.
As for me, I was loving it. I like to see ants swarm, especially when I know they are unwittingly committing suicide because that sweet syrup contained a poison called BORAX.
Yes, borax is fatal to ants but not right away. It eventually eats away at their digestive system but takes a couple days or so. In the meantime, they are taking that poison to the QUEEN and eventually the Queen Ant dies. Not even God can save her at this point. Like I said, that Borax is FATAL to all the ants, and especially the Queen.
So after about 3 or 4 days, the ants slowed to a trickle and even those ants were moving rather sluggishly, like they were totally drunk after having a night on the town at various dive bars.
Within a week of laying those liquid traps, there were no ants at all! All of them were dead. They done went up to ant heaven.
What I'm trying to say here was these liquid ant traps really work. That sugary syrup laced with Borax was like a holocaust for ants.
Hardly see carpenter ants since the early 70’s. Plenty of fire ants though! Freeze line latitude thing I suppose.
My son told me that one of the apartments he lived in must have had ants behind the wall and he watched them in his bathroom through a clear towel rack as they walked back and forth.
That’s essentially the right recipe, and it sure as heck is cheaper long term than buying Terro (which is a good product in terms of effectiveness, but it must be making the maker a fortune!) However, the cotton balls are messy and leave bait behind to clean up. We clean out & refill Terro “traps” or use our own — which can be almost anything that will hold a little of the bait, stay in place, and ants can easily get into. I often position a partially flattened soda can outside out kitchen wall such that it is in shade, rain doesn’t get in, but the ants can. Rocks, etc., can help keep the can in place, and this will hold a couple oz. of bait: Months’ worth.
That’s a good point: Terro will usually kill most of the colony, but often the ants will be back in a couple weeks or months. I try to hit ‘em hard: Ie., wait for the ants to show up in numbers, then put out several Borax / sugar water bait stations, with lots of bait. Otherwise, I think sometimes the queen survives. Or, maybe a new colony takes over the old one’s home.
“Wonder if they make one for libs. I’m really tired of Queen Hillary.”...
There are hundreds, mixed with Jack Daniels they are highly effective but takes a while longer.
Soon as the snow melts away, I’ll start watching for the annual migration. Right now, snow is still too deep to worry about ants for a while.
They have some good sprays that I use to squirt in the walls (through openings for water pipes and drains) and I had the place treated for termites way back when and squirt more in the little holes drilled in the mortar between the bricks - stops ‘em for up to 3 years at a time.
One time I discovered ants all over the wet laundry drying in the Sun, so I trailed them back to the source where they came out of the ground. I then boiled a LARGE pot of water and poured the scalding hot water down into the colony. Needless to say they did not return.
Thank you!! For info on something that works. Will pick some up today, have ants appearing in the bathroom and along the adjoining baseboards.
For some reason the little ants love the charging base to our electric toothbrush. I noticed a lot of them hanging around it and then left it up and the inside was just black with ants. I rested all down the drain in the ants were gone. For good.
Thanks for that. I found the next video (it came up on autoplay) about the physics of fire ants interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpiDADw5Omw
You have an invite to come down and visit my farm in Alabama.
I have huge fire ant mounds that you can poke a stick in and watch the ants go completely bonkers.
I like to run them over with my lawn tractor with the blades going. The sand isn't the best way to treat the blades, but man, it does a job. The ants swarm, I wait a minute or two for all the rest to come up and come back for the kill!
Seriously, all they'll do is build another mound nearby. Even if you try all the tricks and poisons, if you do not kill the queen--as they say in New Jersey--forgetaboutit!
So bait is the way to go! I use Amdro.
Spread around lightly where it is not expected to rain for a few days, it kills all the mound builders in a large area. It's not necessary to pour on the mound, just spread it like lawn fertilizer.
Fire ants have about ruined my paver patio, causing it to sink anywhere they have their tunnels. Several months ago I had a new infestation and was out of anything to treat them with and I had read that cinnamon would work. Though I thought it ridiculous, I gave it a try and, what do you know, it worked! As a test. I took some to my office and put it on a huge mound we had next to our sidewalk. That was last fall that I haven’t seen any more since!
That, or something very close to it, has been around for probably 20 years, but I could never find it. Thanks! Love it!
Amdro Ant Block
It works in 12 hours and the ants are gone
I agree. The Terro stuff works really well. The ants come into our kitchen and I put the stuff near where they are coming in. The nice thing is that they love the stuff and will not forage any further than the bait. So we have this cluster of ants near the window for a few days and then they are gone.
ants
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