So ants have started to invade my house, because, well, that’s what ants do.
However, I’m not in the mood. I set out ant traps, quite a few, both internal and external. I think I should also seal along my baseboards so that they can’t get in.
Any other suggestions? Do professionals help with this or is it overkill?
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OVERKILL WITH INSECTS. I’d get pest control, they aren’t really all that expensive.
I would advise against leaving food out, if you have any, and clean up and food/drink spills immediately. That brings 'em.
Use the hunting rifle, don’t let them get close enough to spit fire.
Obviously you need a moat around your home filled with fire.
We have periodic Ant Apocalypses™ around these parts, too.
Here’s our strategery:
what’s the target? if they’ve found food or something, figure out a better way to seal it, clean it up, or move it. Sometimes it’s unclear what they’re going for, though. They just… show up.
use concentrated orange spray to kill the ones that are inside and remove the ant trails.
seal the hell out of any area we can identify them coming from. Caulk, etc.
place those little metal-thingies-on-a-spike ant poison traps in a bunch of locations around the outside of the house
use the strong “works for a month” ant insecticide spray outside around the house borders near where they were getting inside (although it’s so hard to tell exactly where from).
Beyond that, dunno. I am hesitant to call exterminators because it’s so rarely a problem, maybe 2-3 times a year at most. But when it is, man… the words “Ant Apocalypse” were not chosen lightly.
Its called Termidor SC! Ants go by by. Call a pest service, if there worth anything they will use this but only OUTSIDE, they should use Phatom inside.
Yea I do this for a living :)
Sealing wont really work they will eat thru caulk, those metal things dont do a damn thing :). The orange spray might help but it wont last long. Ants will change what there eating, protein, sugars, and alot of time there just there for the water, ie why you find them in showers and sinks.
Just be glad it’s not the crazy raspberry ants that have apparently appeared in Texas – they attack electronics.
With regular old ants I’ve found the store bought traps work far, far better than they do with roaches. That might just be because roaches are a bigger problem in the city, but the couple times I’ve had to deal with ants, the traps wiped them out entirely in a week or so.
Clean the kitchen, put a dab of ant poison out for them to drag back to the rest, no more ants. Works every summer, and the ant count is somewhat reduced over the years.
Traps haven’t been as effective as poisoning their hives. Works on several other insects, too.
Well, at least the raspberry ants eat fire ants. That’s a plus, I guess.
You can get some ant bait to put around your house that can help.
Do you have mostiure ants? carpenter ants? If you fix whatever is leaking, you can get rid of the mostiure ants. If there is a dead stump or something in the yard luring in the carpenter ants, you ought to get rid of it first.
Terro is great…highly recommended.
All the other suggestions about sealing things up…especially food…are good.
What you want to do first is get one of the ants, look at it closely, and identify exactly what kind of ant you’re dealing with. Some ants are more resilient than others and have different preferences for food.
Sealing cracks is a waste of time in regards to ants. While you may want to do this to keep larger bugs out, you are not going to stop ants from finding a way through anything.
Someone else suggested always cleaning up food and things of that nature. Take it one step further and do a vacuum sweep of every cabinet and baseboard in the house, every corner, and especially the nasty shit that collects under refrigerators, which is probably the number one source of food for every freeloading insect (edit: and San Franciscan bums).
ealing cracks is a waste of time in regards to ants. While you may want to do this to keep larger bugs out, you are not going to stop ants from finding a way through anything.
Well, sealing areas of entry has worked for us. It’s only part of a defense in depth strategy, obviously.
One thing I found that works is to spread a line of cologne across their scent trail in a few spots. Totally disrupts the flow and they can’t find their way around anymore. Then we seal up the entrance and put out a few traps. We do the cologne mostly because it’s amusing to watch.
was there a final house-esque medical explanation posted?
What the hell has QT3 come to …
We have a professional posting solid, professional advice in a topic directly related to their profession.
Next we’re going to have actual doctors answering the 'I have a hole in my chest and its spurting blood - what should I do?" topics!
;)
