Any tips for fighting an ant infestation...

nooshinjohn

Hey guys...I have a major ant problem. We keep as clean a household as we can with a three year old, and we have a maid once a week to help us out. Over the past month, I have had no fewer than a dozen battles with these little ****, but they come back for more. Given their incredible determination, I am convinced they are living within the walls of the house. They have been inside the gas cooktop, entered through electrical outlets, cracks in the walls, or come from under the kitchen cabinets and up through the faucet gasket on the sink. They have come in through AC ducts, and through the hole in the ceiling for venting the wall oven to the outside.

As soon as I stop one point of entry they go to the next and the next... bedrooms have been used, bathrooms... everywhere they can find, and they know them all. They are harder to get rid of than the stench from a visit from Russ.

Outside of burning the house to the ground in a defiant act of surrender, have you guys got any ideas on what I can do to reclaim my house and my sanity?

krazypolk

afterburnt wrote: »

You think you got problems?

The only problem I see is that it ain't on my skillet, yet. That's some good eatin.

gp4jesus

Used coffee grounds.

It won’t kill them or your family but unlike many humans they HATE it. I use them around the yard as I’ve tried various powers and granules w/little long term

joecoulson

afterburnt wrote: »

Yeah and I was sitting there with a G29 and all I could do was watch.

2A 4ever

SCompRacer

afterburnt wrote: »

You think you got problems?

I have a .458 SOCOM applicator for those pests. Works great.

SCompRacer

We had these tiny ants getting in at the back of the house around and on the BAR. I tried all the usual over the counter sprays for outside and traps for inside. No joy. Finally called Orkin. He had this gel he used. He put it in cardboard tubes so the cat couldn't get into it. Taped them to top of bar and in under sink cabinet. The ants sucked on that stuff like it was crack and left. One application, no more ants.

nooshinjohn

Found the source of my problem, and they are inside the house... literally! The foundation for my home was built as a perimeter type with the slab poured inside of it. Over the years, the slab has shrunk an average of two inches all the way around the house, giving the bastages access to literally anywhere in the house.

There is no way to safely fight off these guys without MAJOR work, and their colonies under my home must be massive.

Today, I have found three more huge columns of ants entering my home, one from that gap between foundation and slab directly under my kitchen cabinets, another in the master bathroom, and a third from that same gap in the closet we use to store dry goods... There must be 100k ants, and that's just what I see.

Tony M

Da*% John!

Your house IS getting invaded!!!

ORKIN time...?

charley96

Have you gotten anyone out there yet? Insects creep me out, I'd literally rather deal with snakes instead.

ken brydson

charley96 wrote: »

Have you gotten anyone out there yet? Insects creep me out, I'd literally rather deal with snakes instead.

Snakes freak me the eff out. This is as close as I'll get...

krazypolk

ken brydson wrote: »

charley96 wrote: »

Have you gotten anyone out there yet? Insects creep me out, I'd literally rather deal with snakes instead.

Snakes freak me the eff out. This is as close as I'll get...

Cook em til they're done. Bon apetite.

machone

Call Ant Man.
Maybe he can talk some sense into them.😁

JayCee

Hey, John. I battled ants under a garage slab, to the point of cracking, for 20 years and finally decided to educate and attack based on this. I was successful.

I have 2 longish emails with very detailed info I collected and shared with my family. I took this on as a personal challenge and decided to save my family the uneducated fate. IDing the ants and understanding the 2 cycles, sweet and protein, is key to how you attack a colony. Do the wrong thing and they split to survive. End result is more nests.

Tried to copy/paste into this post but format won't work. If you want...PM me your email address and I'll forward what I have.

Anyway. FYI and happy to give you what I have if you want.

John

JayCee

Disregard PM. Was able to move to a Word doc and then save as PDF. See attached.

Kex

Lot's of great information in this thread!

@nooshinjohn, I've only had to deal with such a serious problem once in the past, but I was able to have some success combating them immediately.

I agree that the bait traps usually work best long term, but I've also had issues like you described, where they didn't seem to work. You might have to suffer through two infestations, but after that, you should be done for the year. I don't buy the pre-assembled traps. I buy the bottles of bait, and put drops of that out for the ants on small pieces of card cut from those shiny waxed card flyers realtors are always sending in the mail.

For a more immediate counterattack in your situation, though, you can also use insect spray on any lines up your wall on the outside, and any out of the way places on the inside. For your outlet (if they come that way again) remove the cover and spray behind it. You could also spray around the wall exhaust vent from your oven, or the pipes under cabinets, if those are still incursion points.

Check outside around windows and around any vents or access points for the crawl space. Those you can also spray with the insect killer. Around dawn and early evening seem to be good times to check. I found that type of spray to be effective at blocking any identified incursion point for at least a month, but you do have to keep checking.

For countertops, floors and other areas, you can spray with any household cleaner to kill the ants. It doesn't have to have bleach. Just the lemon scent stuff is fine. You can leave your victims to dry, and vacuum them up! Check areas you're worried about at dawn, early evening, and last thing at night (around 10 or so). This, combined with the insect spray applied around incursion points, did seem to eliminate the problem within 24 hours, but without the other measures described, you will have to remain vigilant, as they will likely be back from somewhere else in 2-4 weeks.

Longer term, you might want to call the pest control guy that checked your house at the time of purchase. Our guy checked everything (not just termites) for $60. Treatment would obviously be extra, but at least it's someone you can call, and you know that realtors know who's available in the area, so they probably don't choose people who don't know their business.

Kex

P.S. Best of luck! ☘️ 😉

JayCee

Definitely not an expert and in no way trying to counter other's experience. My biggest takeaway from researching was spraying and causing mass panic/death triggers the fight or flight instinct and flight is their choice. The workers are programmed to protect the colony and they do this by immediately splitting and creating more nests. I concluded the reason I, and everyone else I know, have recurring outbreaks is because of the first attack sprays.

I was fortunate because I had open ground to watch the exits and using the workers to bring the bait back was like a Trojan Horse. As the nest started to die they would pile thousands of bodies in little ant graveyards several inches away from the exit. I had pictures but can't find them.

Also, it really is crucial to confirm if they're in protein or sweet cycles. My sneak attack was in April, after they'd remained subterranean during winter, so my educated guess was they'd be looking for sweet, ie. quick energy, as the colony woke. My fallback would've been protein later in the summer assuming they're in build mode.

Just my experience but I added the above to explain my thought process.

afterburnt

Nothing to do with Johns situation but interesting. I had a carpenter ant invation at one of my old places. There were never any carpenter ants in all the desert I lived in and then inundated. I didn't try to fight them. I like carpenter ants, almost as good as rolly pollys. I eventually read that the fires in the Sierra's that summer had driven them down to the desert below. Those fires were ten if not twenty miles away! The article said that their networks run for miles and miles. Too bad ants aren't five inch praying mantis isisisisz. If I had a thousand of those in my house that would rule!

sucks2beme

My house in North Texas had Pharaoh ants when I moved in. They had built a colony in the wall by the kitchen. An exterminator tried many times to kill them.
They weren't taking the bait at all. The Terro stuff did the trick. They were all over the neighborhood. so a year or two later they were back. They had the nest in the yard, and were trunking down the fence to the house. I put the Terro out there-gone again!
The point is pretty clear, know the enemy. Only the right bait works.
Pharaoh ants always go for the sweet stuff. Other ants require other treatments.
The other common ant in North Texas, Fire ants! The battle with them never stopped.
Neither of my neighbors were doing anything, so they would slide down along the sidewalk till they got back in my yard. Finally I got new neighbors that did treatments.
Not much of an issue after that. If a street all treats, they go away. If not, it's an endless battle.

sucks2beme

In Tennessee all I've got to worry about are snakes. Lots of snakes.
Only one poisonous one so far. I back up to the Wolf river preservation area.
I was behind the fence hacking back the brush to about 8' from my property
(utility easement area) and saw a pygmy rattler heading out.
Snakes, possums, raccoons, deer, bobcats,armadillos, coyotes, hawks, we have them all.
The wife has a picture of a bobcat cruising the back yard in the middle of the day.

Tony M

How about this technique?

afterburnt

@Tony M How does going to the circus help?

txcoastal1

afterburnt wrote: »

@Tony M How does going to the circus help?

That's not a circus, thats a bouncy house...that would be a blast and very intoxicating

pitdogg2

Lol ....

charley96

Don't Walter and Jesse make their meth in that tent?!

mrbigbluelight

txcoastal1 wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

@Tony M How does going to the circus help?

That's not a circus, thats a bouncy house...that would be a blast and very intoxicating

Bouncy House ? Like a Gentlemen's Club .? 😳

Tony M

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

txcoastal1 wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

@Tony M How does going to the circus help?

That's not a circus, thats a bouncy house...that would be a blast and very intoxicating

Bouncy House ? Like a Gentlemen's Club .? 😳

Nooshin would have Johns' you know whats.

joecoulson

How goes the fight John?

nooshinjohn

joecoulson wrote: »

How goes the fight John?

At the moment, there is an uneasy truce... I know the bas-tards are planning a counter attack, but from where dammit! FROM WHERE!

TroyD

If you've got an infestation of that magnitude, my money is a moisture issue......and I'd bet there is something leaking somewhere. At this point, I wouldn't dork around with it......get a professional, I'd go with someone that does commercial work like Ecolab. Find the source treat it and correct the underlying issue.....and moisture issues are a real PITA.

Just my .02

mrbiron

https://youtu.be/1bqSgvEZNtY