bizzymomof5 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 these are the little brown ants. I think my step-mom calls them sugar ants. We have sprayed outside around windows doors and foundation but they are back the next day. I put a few of those little ant house things that has the poising in them. Nothing. Are there any safe remedies as we have 5 kids and 2 cats and I would rather not use chemicals if possible. they are actually crawling into my dishwasher and appear to be coming in around the sliding glass doors to the patio. Thanks, tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Put Cayenne pepper or cinnamon (or both) at their entry points/around baseboards, etc. It breaks up their chemical "roads" and repels them, while not harming littles and pets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mynyel Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Cinnamon yes..that can get expensive though :) We use baby powder. Ants hate powder. We use it all over our house. It looks unsightly but it keeps the ants at bay. The only other thing we have done to keep them at bay is to keep the kitchen clean at night and decent during the day. We have ants everywhere as well. Kitchen, Dining Room, Bathrooms, Bedrooms, Closets. If there is any piece of food left (protein based food, cheese, or pasta or a dead bug) they will find it. Doesn't matter what part of the house it is. Terminex hasn't been successful. They are living in the walls. My dh and I joke about how much insulation they may be providing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nono Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Chalk. Draw a chalk line out on your patio in a u shape to your door - they won't cross it. Like this: . Door I_____I With 5 kids, I'm guessing you have some chalk lying around. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinder Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 We had a major ant priblem in the house we rented a couple years back--sugar ants in the back, carpenter ants through the side. What worked for us was to sprinkle granular ant bait around the foundation of the house. I know you'd prefer a safe option but if you get desperate this works. Cinder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iona Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 i'm dealing with ants as well, so i appreciate these posts. i drench the entry points with 409 hoping to erase the "scent trail", but i knew there were probably better ways to handle them. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 If you can find the mound sprinkle it with instant grits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaMa2005 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Ants are tough. Our exterminator said ants are to 2010 what cockroaches were in the 1980s. Often impossible to completely eradicate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizzymomof5 Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 thanks for these suggestions. I will try the cinnamon and cayenne for now. Don't have baby powder on hand but I do have chalk. I'm willing to try it all! these little ants drive me nuts.:glare: thanks tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisamarie Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 It's the year of the ants. My friend and I were just discussing how each year there seems to be a certain bug that infests houses more than usual. Last year it was spiders, the year before it was fruit flies. Anyway, I was having issues with pavement/sugar ants and bought the raid bait traps which seemed to be doing nothing. I read online that you can make a solution of 1 cup warm water, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 T borax. Dissolve the sugar and borax in the water, soak cotton balls in it and then set them where the ants are. For me that was my counter. This seemed to work better than the bait traps. I also sprayed my counters down every night with clorox anywhere bleach spray to erase their trails. DH also sprinkled poison granules around the foundation of the house. Not sure how that's working yet since he did that this past Saturday. But he did it because my sister was having ant issues and her exterminator told her that ants don't come into the house unless you have a major yard infestation. They come into the house when they run out of room outside or something like that. I don't know how true that is, but I made DH put poison around the house just the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorganClassicalPrep Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Well, I'm glad to know I'm not alone!!! I have ants bad also. Luckily they are pretty contained to my kitchen. If I leave even 1 (ONE!!) dish in the sink, here they come. It's pretty frustrating, but I wash every dish as soon as we are done with it and keep the counters VERY clean. All of our food is up in a high cabinet where I haven't seen any ants, and our canned food is down low. Off to buy baby powder...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girligirlmom Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 these are the little brown ants. I think my step-mom calls them sugar ants. We have sprayed outside around windows doors and foundation but they are back the next day. I put a few of those little ant house things that has the poising in them. Nothing. Are there any safe remedies as we have 5 kids and 2 cats and I would rather not use chemicals if possible. they are actually crawling into my dishwasher and appear to be coming in around the sliding glass doors to the patio. Thanks, tracy TERRO! http://www.terro.com/ Bait 'em and kill 'em! It's gross to see the hundreds to thousands come into your house to eat the bait, but you have to let them so they bring it home to "mama". It really works! You might find you need to put these baits in the back(inside), in the front(inside) and even upstairs since there might be several mounds and entry points. You can make your own but I don't bother. I do keep these on hand 'cause if you find one, there are many more on their way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirth Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Two words: Liquid Terro It's just Borax and sugar syrup but it does work well, and reliably. You can just make the water/sugar/borax recipe another person mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ereks mom Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 (edited) ...putting this stuff near their trail: 1 cup of very warm water ½ cup of sugar, just get the cheapest sugar you can find. You do not need to get fancy - no need for turbanado here. 2 tablespoons of borax, This is the same borax that you use to clean your clothes with. They are unable to detect a small amount of borax when mixed in with the large amount of sugar. Once you have the solution mixed you simply dunk cotton balls in the solution. Once the cotton ball is saturated with the solution you place the cotton ball on or near all of the trails that you see. You should see the ants flock to these things like crazy. When the ants come to the cotton balls, the temptation is to kill them - don't! This is part of the secret to getting rid of the ants. Let them eat the solution. The party will be over for them soon. The ants will do what ants do, and take their new "food" back to their ant buddies in the ant hill where the other ants in the colony feed off of this sugar borax solution. Once the borax gets into the colony, most of the ants will die within 24 hours. You may need to put out some new cotton balls with the solution a few days later. If you follow this process you should be ant free in no time. We had hundreds, probably THOUSANDS of sugar ants in our bathrooms, kitchen, and pantry. Apparently, they were living in our walls! We would see ant trails along the baseboards in just about every room of our house! We tried the cotton balls (as suggested above), but wound up just using plastic cups (the kind that pudding or applesauce comes in) full of borax/sugar solution instead. We had to keep the cups in place for several weeks, but eventually, we conquered the ants! One final note: there are lots of recipes for borax/sugar solution online, and these call for various amounts of each ingredient. We played around with the amounts until we found what worked for us. You should do the same. You could buy Terro--which is nothing more than syrup (sugar + water) and borax--but we just made our own. From the Terro website: "TERRO® Liquid Ant Bait is a sweet food based product similar to pancake syrup combined with Borax." Don't give up; the ants are maddening, but you CAN defeat them! Edited June 23, 2010 by ereks mom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaillardia Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 New house here, invasion first winter, spring and summer. We used diatomaceous earth. It is safe to use around kids. Sprinkled it all around outside of foundation, inside along the wall/floor. We really haven't seen any inside the house since and our spider problem isn't as bad this year as it was last. I think you can get diatomaceous earth in most gardening stores. It is a white powdery substance. I have a friend that uses it to worm his puppies, mixes it in with chicken feed too. I would read up on that though. But to use it as an insect repellant, it works and is safe. Another friend had it sprinkled all over her floor (so it looked like a baby powder spill) because of the fire ants that wouldn't stop coming in the house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MommyX8 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Terro works really well for small ants (they go for sugar.) I have big, black carpenter ants now. They appear in my bathroom. I keep a pair of tweezers handy so I usually pluck them up and down the drain they go. I'm over 40 so sometimes it takes a few tries to actually catch the moving target, especially first thing in the AM. :blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 There are a number of good suggestions here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sahamamama Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 It's the year of the ants. My friend and I were just discussing how each year there seems to be a certain bug that infests houses more than usual. Last year it was spiders, the year before it was fruit flies. At our house this year, it is PINCHER BUGS. Since these are a "food source" for centipedes, we have more of those, too. I just LOVE going down into the basement to do laundry. :tongue_smilie: For our little guests, we have made a spray of tea tree oil, lavender oil, and water -- put it in a pump spray bottle, shake it up, and spray it wherever you see creepy-crawlies.... ... EXCEPT where people walk, as the oils make the floor slippery (ask me how I know). :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MommyX8 Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 Is that a centipede or a silverfish? Silverfish are nasty and they hang around damp places. They also eat the glue of book bindings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perry Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 Terro bait. It will take a week or so. Be patient. It works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionfamily1999 Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 I was just getting ready to burn the house down (that'll kill those stinkin' ants). Chalk and cinamon (spelling police come get me) sound much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizzymomof5 Posted June 25, 2010 Author Share Posted June 25, 2010 Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions! trying, waiting, watching. :) tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom4him Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 these are the little brown ants. I think my step-mom calls them sugar ants. We have sprayed outside around windows doors and foundation but they are back the next day. I put a few of those little ant house things that has the poising in them. Nothing. Are there any safe remedies as we have 5 kids and 2 cats and I would rather not use chemicals if possible. they are actually crawling into my dishwasher and appear to be coming in around the sliding glass doors to the patio. Thanks, tracy Sorry but my first thought was 'Call the uncles!' Ok, when you put the ant traps down did you put them in the path that the ants were taking? This is what I have always done and had good success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCoffeeChick Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 Is that a centipede or a silverfish? Silverfish are nasty and they hang around damp places. They also eat the glue of book bindings. It's a house centipede -- we've had a few in our house. AAGGHH!! They are so creepy looking. But we did catch one in a jar and inspect it before we let it outside. ;) I guess that makes us a pretty typical homeschooler. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 Terro! My kids find it fascinating to watch the initial swarm when they find the bait. I find it gross. Last winter (I am the only person I know who gets a major ant infestation when it is 20 degrees out) I used the Terro and it cleared out most of them. However, this infestation would not stop. After a couple of weeks of the Terro I coated my dining room floor with baby powder. After a week of not seeing any ants I sprayed poison on the baseboard around the room just to be sure they would not come back. So far, so good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizzymomof5 Posted June 25, 2010 Author Share Posted June 25, 2010 Sorry but my first thought was 'Call the uncles!' Ok, when you put the ant traps down did you put them in the path that the ants were taking? This is what I have always done and had good success. What a hoot!:lol: But, yes, I put the traps in the path of the ants. Mine are not Torro so maybe that is why they didn't work and I still had ants. tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionfamily1999 Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 One full year and ten summers of ants. I was ready to tear out the walls and squish each and every individual ant. The cinammon (still can't spell) worked. God bless you people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 There are folks who rent out their border collies to drive away the Canada geese and goats to eat the kudzu---maybe I need to invest in an anteater?:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionfamily1999 Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 Lol, KarenNC... anteater keeper. oooOOooo or, "The Ant Whisperer." I see a series ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 THANK YOU for the formula for the ant bait. I mixed it up yesterday, saturated some cotton balls with it, and left them on the counter in the ant trails. Ants were all over those things. We have NO ants in the kitchen today. We have ants in one of the upstairs bathrooms (honey mask) and on the art table (no idea why they're over there). I took those same cottonballs upstairs and put them on the bathroom counter, edge of the bathtub, and the art table. I expect all of those ants to be gone tomorrow as well. The ants are swarming the cottonballs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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