Ants...how can I kill them!!! (1 Viewer)

[MikeAlletto]

Ok, I just noticed a bunch of ants in my bathroom, and now I noticed a bunch in my living room on the carpet. I went around killing, smashing and squashing like a mad man. Went and bought some raid aresol spray, srayed around the outside of my apartment and on the doors and fireplace of the inside. I killed all that I could see with the spray also. I know they will be back, what else can I do??? These things are so annoying!
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Michael Alletto
Mike's DVD List

 

[Jeff_A]

Mike,
I had a similar problem a few years ago (carpenter ants). If they are already in your house, you will probably want to hire a reputable exterminator as there is probably a nest very nearby. We actually had to spray into the walls in the rooms where we saw them. Once they are removed from the house (the nest and queen are killed). I would get religous about laying Diazinon (or a similar product) around the foundation of your house at least every spring. This will create a wall they will not be quick to get through. Sorry, it sucks, I know!
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The Dark Tower

Roman Polanski's - The Fearless Vampire Killers?

 

[MikeAlletto]

I am going to call my apartment complex tuesday morning and have them send a guy out to spray everywhere. In my previous place I NEVER saw an ant. Had a few crickets, but thats it. But in my new place I've got all kinds of critters...DIE BUGS DIE!!!
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Michael Alletto
Mike's DVD List

 

[Julie K]

I think my house must be built on an anthill. Every summer they invade my house, until the big bad human resorts to chemical warfare

I bug-bomb the house and let me tell you that works great. I start the bombs, go away and watch a movie, then come home and sweep up the bodies. You can't get any easier than that. I also spray around the doors and windows every few weeks.
Just be sure to not use any more bombs than what's on the label. Every summer I hear of people burning down their houses because they used too many (as in 30 in 800 square feet when I use three for 1400 square feet). Also, make sure to turn off the pilot light to any appliances.
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"Some people think I'm over-prepared, paranoid...maybe even a little crazy. But they never met any pre-Cambrian life forms, did they?"

 

[Chuck C]

oozie
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Chuck
Chuckster's HT Equipment List
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[Jay H]

oozie

Wouldn't that be Uzi?

I know some people who live with spiders and stuff, they make nice little webs that tend to do a good job with flying bugs like moths and gnats. I know some tarantula keepers who actually have tarantulas running around loose in the bathrooms and the humid areas...
Ants though aren't prey of tarantulas, matter of fact, it's mostly the other way around, ants have been known to invade a Ts burrow and drive the T out or kill it....

After the bug bombing, you could always try to caulk up things near your foundation, under your shingles, stuff like that... You'll probably find tons of little holes around your home that you can plug up... Things like the garage seem to attract those little buggers and downstairs before they go up... Can't hurt to caulk them up anyway.
Jay

 

[Chuck C]

whoops....Uzi
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[Jim_F]

Raid product names keep changing, the last I used was Raid Ant Baits Plus. The active ingredient with which I've had success is N-ethyl-perchlorooctanesulfonamide 0.05%. It has 2 things going for it-it's practically nontoxic to mammals (since it's present in such small quantities as to be a miniscule hazard) and it acts slowly enough that they can actually get it back to the nest before croaking.
I've used them twice on the little brown home invaders. At first they swarm the baits, like it's a huge party with free eats. I was tempted to remove the baits, thinking the ants were resistant and that I was only feeding them. After the recommended weeklong wait, however, those varmints were history.
I doubt that any acceptably safe pesticide will work on all ant species, so YMMV.

 

[Paul O]

I had a serious infestation a year ago. Short of calling an exterminator i tried all of the supermarket stuff (Raid, Combat)..might as well throw your money away. The one thing that worked was something called "Grants" I found at Home Depot...its cheap and it killed the ants - DEAD!!

 

[Burke Strickland]

Inside, I use Hot Shot MaxAttrax ant bait. (For those who go ballistic over misspelled words in posts, that's the actual product name, spelled the way it is printed on the package.) :>) The ants take the "food" in the baits back to the nest to share with the others. The package claims the product kills the ants in about 24 hours. They seem to disappear sooner than that.
But I also use Diazinon outside where ever I see mounds in the yard and at the foundation of the house. The mounds are inactive with in a couple of days following application.
Burke

 

[Craig Robertson]

easy and non-toxic to humans and pets (and cheap!):
pick up some Borax in the laundry section of your supermarket and sprinkle it around where the ants are, the ants will pick up the Borax and take it to their nest. the boric acid in the Borax will kill them. this works great for either inside or outside.
[Edited last by Craig Robertson on September 03, 2001 at 09:30 PM]

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

You know what, I have 1105 posts in this forum and have never came to this area until now!
I have a small ant problem at the beginning of the spring, but I just keep spraying the area, usually around my window in my room, with RAID and that does the trick for the rest of the summer.
The biggest problem I have all summer long is with those damn utterly repulsive Centipedes! I see one or two on average maybe once a week, and those little, and sometimes not so little, bastards can RUN! Fortunatly RAID kills them very quickly, spray one, it runs a couple of feet, then drops dead.
But my #1 enemy, the bug I have feared all my life and still to this day cannot look at or approach...WATERBUGS! Just typing the word gives me the chills, I both hate and fear them. They are the most repulsive creatures on this earth! Fortunately they are very scarce, I see one maybe once in a summer, that's in the house itself, but the basement is another matter, that's why I don't go down thier in the warm summer months.
You wanna have some fun with bugs? Get a can of superhold 'Aquanet' hairspray, and whenever you see a bug, give it a good soaking with the 'Aquanet', after that stuff hardens the bug won't be able to move!!

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"How can I heal, when I can't feel time?"
Leonard from Memento
[Edited last by John Williamson on September 03, 2001 at 10:36 PM]

 

[Rachael B]

Burke, those Fire Ants always come back. I know, I had a house in Kerrville, which I've since sold. The Hill Country is THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS! I think the D.E.A. should dump the confiscated cocaine in Fire Ant holes. The ants would all become junkies and die. You never know...it might work? I suspect after we humans have exterminated each other, the Hill Country ants will build a mound taller than the World Trade Center. Best wishes!
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Rachael, the big disc cat! "...Mandrake, have you ever seen a commie drink water..."
AFI Film Challenge, hey I've only got 1 to go!

 

[Tim Hoover]

there's also a great product called Terro. It's a jelly substance that you put out and the ants take it back to the colony. It takes about a week to kill all the ants but you won't see any again until next year!
P.S. I just noticed the active ingredient in Terro is borax. So like Craig said, just use the borax - it's probably much cheaper!

 

[Julie K]

I tried a bunch of different baits before switching to bug bombs but never found one that the ants actually liked. They simply crawled over or around it and never seemed attracted to it. These are grease eating ants so maybe they're different?
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"Some people think I'm over-prepared, paranoid...maybe even a little crazy. But they never met any pre-Cambrian life forms, did they?"

 

[Ryan Wright]

Diazinon

Oh yeah... this stuff works great. When we moved into our new house last year, there were anthills all over the (unfinished) yard. Bought some of this stuff and sprinkled it on the hills. I've never had more fun in my life. The little suckers scrambled out in droves the second it hit and started dragging it back into their nest. We sat there and watched them for a long time. Within 10-15 minutes my fairly large pile of these little round balls was gone. Haven't seen 'em again.
In early 2000 our subdivision was nothing but an empty potato field. Consequently, when we moved in we had these potato bugs everywhere. Those things are nasty; they're huge (a good inch long, half an inch tall - about the size of one of those mini-Snickers bars you give out on Halloween), with a somewhat hard "shell", except they can fly. When they're buzzing around they're about the size of a racketball due to the wings. They've also got these claw-like feet so they can climb right up the side of your house. At any given moment there were dozens of these things in our front yard. You'd open the door for a minute and three or four would crawl in. Nasty little suckers. We only had to deal with them for ~4 months or so. By the time we got our yard in (and most of our neighbors had done the same) they just went away.
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-Ryan (http://www.ryanwright.com )
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to use the HTF and keep him occupied for life.

 

[Steve Peterson]

The best stuff I've found that you put on the anthill is a pesticide called Orthine. Very, very nasty stuff - don't apply it around children or pets, or use it indoors. Usually sold as Fire Ant Killer, this stuff works. Just make sure you follow the directions.
Steve "Die bugs, DIE!" Peterson
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[MikeAlletto]

Unfortunately since I'm in an apartment I don't have control of the outside grounds and I don't know where they are hiding. I went and bought some baits and some raid aresole spray. I droped a bait right in the middle of a pack of them to see what they would do. They would walk right up to it, stop then high tail it the other direction...NONE of them even went near the things. So then I got my can of raid and went to town. As soon as the raid hit them they died. I then sprayed it near where they were congregating and killed some more. Then vacuumed up the dead critters. Then went outside and sprayed in the hall and my doors (patio and front door. I've also sprayed the baseboards that border the outside. I called the complex this morning and they are sending the bug man out on thrusday. I haven't seen any since I went on my killing spree yesterday afternoon, so maybe they got the picture. I need to be more careful about leaving food out also. I would leave stuff out all the time in my old place and never had a bug problem, but they seem to like my new place better. There is nothing more satisfying than killing these critters. Just stay out of my living space and we'll get along just fine, too bad you can't reason with them
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Michael Alletto
Mike's DVD List

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Even with scheduled service by a pest company, we sometimes get invaded.
I use Windex for inside the house as I'm not fond of using poisons around the living area.
When I first had problems, we had a run of many days of hot weather. I called several pest companies, but none of them could come out for weeks. They were too busy helping their subscribers with the same problem.
One lady finally took pity on me. She said they were coming into the house looking for water. She suggested doing a heavy water job on the lawn. I took her advice and a day or so later...no ants.
The Diazanon crystals were suggested to me by an agronomist (someone in California who specalizes in agricultural problems). Instead of sprinkling water, I poured some Pepsi over the grains. It comes in large, inexpensive canisters and is easy to deploy.

 

[Brian Harnish]

Man, I hate ants. And bugs. Blech. Every summer here in Southern California, we have an ant problem. Last year was the worst. They invaded the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and the upstairs bathroom. This year, though, my mom used some lemon juice and sprayed it around where the ants would gather. This ended up being the lightest ant year ever!
...all thanks to lemon juice.
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- Brian
My DVD Collection
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