# Ants on countertops, etc. not fire, not carpenter



## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Little sure and Borax worked great at my house. Never had the problem again in 9 years.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

Are you sure? My understanding is that pyrethrins are poisonous to cats.

Sorry, can't do a link on this cell.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Windows on Wash said:


> Little sure and Borax worked great at my house. Never had the problem again in 9 years.


Was it borax or boric acid?


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Boric acid.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

I use Terro gel.
The ants eat it and carry it back to the nest, once the Queen eats it the whole nest dies out.
People flip out when they first use it, there will be hundreds of ants show up for a few days eating it, which is a good thing.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

I've only had ants in my kitchen once and Terro took care of them in short order.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

mark sr said:


> I've only had ants in my kitchen once and Terro took care of them in short order.


I'll try that!

Learn something new every day. Sounds like they beat hell out of those ant stakes we used back in the 1980s.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

The thing with Terro is it's a bait, if you spray also it might not work. You want the ants to get to the Terro and bring it back to their nest. Spray can prevent that. Several yrs back we had gotten ants in our kitchen and spraying was only temporary. Once we quit using spray and went to the bait it wasn't no time and the ants were gone.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

mark sr said:


> The thing with Terro is it's a bait, if you spray also it might not work. You want the ants to get to the Terro and bring it back to their nest. Spray can prevent that. Several yrs back we had gotten ants in our kitchen and spraying was only temporary. Once we quit using spray and went to the bait it wasn't no time and the ants were gone.


That's great.

Guess I'll have to walk back my thread, which I'm happy to do.

I used to use baits that didn't work. 

It turns out that the Terro is available in California, too. (CA is big on banning pesticides, sometimes for silly reasons.)

I'm going to get some for when the ants invade the cat food again. 

That's what I love about this site.

Next I'll do one on cockroaches, and maybe someone will have a foolproof nuclear option on that, too!


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

> maybe someone will have a foolproof nuclear option on that, too!



Move to a colder climate! I used to live in fla and fighting roaches was an ongoing battle. I used to buy a certain product that was very effective but then it was banned. In climates prone to roaches you need to keep a clean house and spray monthly. ... and you'll still see a few. Where I live now I think you have to have a pretty nasty house before the cockroaches take hold.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

mark sr said:


> Move to a colder climate! I used to live in fla and fighting roaches was an ongoing battle. I used to buy a certain product that was very effective but then it was banned. In climates prone to roaches you need to keep a clean house and spray monthly. ... and you'll still see a few. Where I live now I think you have to have a pretty nasty house before the cockroaches take hold.


I spent a summer in Pulaski county Kentucky, and there were these giant flying roaches EVERYWHERE. I left a bit of food out, ran in to get something and they were all over it like vultures after a few minutes.

A visitor left open a door and they flew in, and drank the dishwashing water. :vs_whistle:


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

You can use a cake pan, or the like, full of water that you put the cat food dish in, until you get ants under control. 

Some tropical areas use cat food cans with water under each chair & table leg. But, that's for really bad ants or cockroaches.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Nik333 said:


> You can use a cake pan, or the like, full of water that you put the cat food dish in, until you get ants under control.
> 
> Some tropical areas use cat food cans with water under each chair & table leg. But, that's for really bad ants or cockroaches.


Thankfully, I don't have to go to those lengths. When (!) the ants come back to my kitties' feeding station (Hawg Troughs) I'll put out some of that Terro bait and wait. 

My method above in the original post works great, but won't get rid of the nest. Hopefully the Terro will.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

DoomsDave said:


> Thankfully, I don't have to go to those lengths. When (!) the ants come back to my kitties' feeding station (Hawg Troughs) I'll put out some of that Terro bait and wait.
> 
> My method above in the original post works great, but won't get rid of the nest. Hopefully the Terro will.


Isn't your area somewhat desert-like? Good luck with the endless ants.:wink2:


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Nik333 said:


> Isn't your area somewhat desert-like? Good luck with the endless ants.:wink2:


What's great about Terro (if it works) is that it gets the ants that are actually the source of the problem; otherwise you go on this pogrom against likely colonies, and kill the innocent and spare the guilty to raid again.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

DoomsDave said:


> What's great about Terro (if it works) is that it gets the ants that are actually the source of the problem; otherwise you go on this pogrom against likely colonies, and kill the innocent and spare the guilty to raid again.


Speaking of Raid. . . :wink2:, I'm afraid of pesticides that kill the liver, with good reason. But, I do use Raid's small, flat containers of arsenic. I use them rarely, usually when the ants come in from the first rain, & tape them down so they can't be played with by ever curious animals.

I figure as long as they don't come in contact with water, like by the sink, they're pretty safe.


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## jecapereca (Mar 28, 2019)

I have those tiny ants in my rented apt. Last summer they would come and go. Very tiny, I would squish them whenever I saw one. I tried cinnamon, boric acid powder, spray - nothing. Finally got some ant buttons. It seems to have slowed them down a bit. But like I said, they come and go, so we'll see.

This year they are also coming out in the bathroom upstairs - the south wall of the kitchen is below the north wall of the bathroom, so they are climbing up.

After spending winters in AL with the "palmetto bugs" I am happy that tiny ants is the only pest problem in the house.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

I remember this loony dude back in Diamond Bar in 1988, who bought three gallons of UNDILUTED diazinon, which, he told me, sprayed UNDILUTED around his house to kill the ants.

Bet the health car providers will flip their beehives over that one . . . .


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Here’s some of that Terro ant bait

Waiting 

Mua ha ha ha ha ha


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## Calson (Jan 23, 2019)

What has worked the best for me is to put one of the metal ant stakes inside the floor of the cabinet under the sink. They have a 1/4" access hole to the bait that the ants take back to the nest. No pet is going to get to the bait and get accidentally poisoned.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

DoomsDave said:


> Here’s some of that Terro ant bait
> 
> Waiting
> 
> Mua ha ha ha ha ha


Look up the chemical, it's basically Borax. Ha!:devil3:


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Nik333 said:


> Look up the chemical, it's basically Borax. Ha!:devil3:


Borax with bait.

We'll see if it makes a difference.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Well time to bring this thread back to the front, my kitchen is under attack, little black ants. I have been a fan of Terro for years battling carpenter ants but more reading is telling me I'm using the wrong one. I should be using Terro plus and will research more and pick some up.

Back to the little b-turds. Fortunately the liquid Terro I have seems to be perfect for these little guys/gals. I had a couple of bait stations out, clip the end type, but discovered if it is out too long it becomes a fly trap, sticky which defeats the "kill the queen" approach. I saw they were getting stuck inside so quickly baited several pads in that area with fresh bait. Wow, they soon arrived in the hundreds. I added more pads to provide more seats at the table. 

When I went to bed they were actively feeding so I just left them alone. In the morning they were all gone, not dead, just gone, which is a perfect result. I removed the old bait station and examined it, over 100 inside dead. Replaced that spot with a piece of gloss cardboard and a few drops of new Terro. Refreshed other pads and waited and soon they started arriving. Currently a full house at the baited pads with a trail of ants coming and going. I read that a large colony may take several days to weeks depending upon size.

I will update and i have pictures.

Bud


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

We have had and till do have the small black ants and we do have the torro out fro them to get. We also have some larger black ants about the size between the small ants and half the size of the larger carpenter ants. Can't figure out how to get rid of them.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Well, I must be winning for now. Two days of well over 100, too many to count, and today peak number was about 50, but really sparse compared to before. Again all gone by dusk so I'll wait until tomorrow morning to see how many show up. Hopefully I will be able to eliminate the entire colony but haven't been so lucky with the carpenter ants. I always get their numbers down to where I rarely see any but each spring they come back. maybe the different version of the Terro will work better.

For now the little black ones are doing as they should and carrying the poison back to the others.

Bud


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## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

Fun facts about ant bait. Borax is toxic to ants. It kills the bacteria that the ants use to digest food so the colony starves to death when they bring it back. 
Mix 1/4 cup of corn syrup with a teaspoon of borax or boric acid and put in bottle caps. Terro ant bait is nothing more than borax mixed with sugar water. Buy a 5 lb box of "20 Mule Team" Borax in the laundry soap isle. Enough for 10 years of ant bait.

Sometimes you will come across ants that favor protein over sugar. These can be harder to get rid of with borax. Try mixing with cheese sauce, powdered milk, etc...


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

chiraldude said:


> Fun facts about ant bait. Borax is toxic to ants. It kills the bacteria that the ants use to digest food so the colony starves to death when they bring it back.
> Mix 1/4 cup of corn syrup with a teaspoon of borax or boric acid and put in bottle caps. Terro ant bait is nothing more than borax mixed with sugar water. Buy a 5 lb box of "20 Mule Team" Borax in the laundry soap isle. Enough for 10 years of ant bait.
> 
> Sometimes you will come across ants that favor protein over sugar. These can be harder to get rid of with borax. Try mixing with cheese sauce, powdered milk, etc...


Might experiment . . . :devil3:


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Update.
It has been over two weeks and the numbers have steadily declined, but not zero as I hoped. So why?
The ones that visit my bait clearly like it and spend lots of time feeding, so where are the return critters coming from, these are tiny black ants? My initial guess was many just hadn't hatched yet and I don't know how much time that could add, but in a week or so I expected all eggs laid before the poison arrived to have matured.

So where are these stragglers coming from? My next guess is they had been off in a different direction searching for food and were slow to return and I think that means we need to be sure we keep the bait fresh and available for much longer than the initial surge.

As for keeping the Terro fresh I have found new bait every day is a must. Leave it there 2 days and they can walk right over it. One day and it is too sticky for them and they don't feed well. Put out new bait and they circle it like cattle to a hay bail.

Once I reach zero I will do some caulking as I know where they are getting in, but best to do the baiting while I know where they are.

Bud


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

Maybe more than one colony? Did you try the arsenic bait ( out of reach of your dogs.)


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

From what I'm reading, arsenic is being taken out of ant baits. They're using avermectin, now. Raid ant bait III has it. Whatever I used last year worked really well. I thought it was arsenic but may have been avermectin. I usually read up on ingredients but didn't.


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## JonTempleman (Jun 11, 2013)

Borax and sugar, 1 to 1 ratio. 

Add water until the mix is the same consistency as syrup. 

You can make a trap out of a plastic tub (Flora or something similar) by cutting slits or making holes on the side of the tub (Say 1CM above the bottom) 

Add a tea spoon of the Borax mix, cover and leave where the ants are at. 

They take the borax back to the nest, feed it to the other ants and it kills them all off.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Another update, been about a month so far and still NOT zero. Depressing and I don't know where they are coming from. I had initially thought they may have been foragers that where out and about in other directions and when they returned they didn't eat any of the poison bait.  Subsequently they followed the trail to my current bait but it seems to be never ending. The decline from over 100 the first two days down to the 5 to 10 I see daily now is great and i will maintain the bait for a long time. 

But my concern is, has the queen been killed? Is the colony really dead?

And even worse, have some of these visitors developed a tolerance to Terro? Some of the stragglers seem to feed and wonder around with no effect. I can't tell if they are the same ones returning daily but they do disappear every night (almost).

Strange as I had expected to reach that magic number ZERO.

Bud


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## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

My guess is that the main colony has died out from your bait but you are being visited by "scouts" from other colonies around your house. 
I'm not that familiar with outdoor ant baits and poisons but these are typically more potent and thus not for indoor use. There are granules that are meant to be spread around the perimeter of a structure to form a barrier. There are also outdoor bait stations.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Currently spraying the outside except for 30' of fenced in area where my puppies travel. I will use a more friendly spray there. Been raining so much I have held off but getting sun so will finish today.

Other colonies is definitely a possibility and my goal is to eliminate them all.

Thanks
Bud


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

This should be the final update, zero ants for several days. It had gone down to one or two per day but now with fresh bait every day, nothing, zero and I find that impressive.

next effort will be my carpenter ants. I have been dealing with them for too many years. Not bad this year but not zero. My hope is with the spraying outside and bait inside they will be gone for good. I'll start a new thread and reference the two together and let you know how that battle goes.

Note, I will be picking up "Terro Plus" for the carpenter ants. I have pictures of them going for the regular Terro but apparently the Plus is what i should be using.

Bud


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## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

Carpenter ants indoors is a bit concerning. They like damp wood so that means you may have an issue somewhere. Last house I bought I had a few sightings here and there. Then, I remodeled a bathroom and found a very active nest between layers of subfloor around the toilet which had been leaking for a long time.
When I bought the house the inspector saw a pile of stuff that looked like sawdust on the top of the foundation wall under the bathroom. Said it was something but "whatever it was it's long gone"


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## Allielump (Jul 16, 2018)

I do the borax and sugar solution, except I leave out the water and just let them eat dry powder. Just pour a little on a piece of paper. Plus i add more sugar then a 1 to 1 ratio. It works well


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## DIYOkie (Jun 27, 2013)

Bud9051 said:


> This should be the final update, zero ants for several days. It had gone down to one or two per day but now with fresh bait every day, nothing, zero and I find that impressive.
> 
> next effort will be my carpenter ants. I have been dealing with them for too many years. Not bad this year but not zero. My hope is with the spraying outside and bait inside they will be gone for good. I'll start a new thread and reference the two together and let you know how that battle goes.
> 
> ...


Now that it's been almost a year and we're into spring...did Terro work out for controlling your ant problem? 

My son and his wife are dealing with a really bad ant infestation in their kitchen and it's a rent house with a crawl space foundation. No spraying has worked at all.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

I'm glad you brought that up, timkoupe. I'm sure Bud has researched the ants. I recently realized that many of our bugs have become pesticide resistant. This town is near 3 dairies and the flies are horrendous. I actually found articles written for the dairy associations dealing with this.


Regarding ants -

"If you use the same kind of pesticide every time, the ants will become resistant to the pesticide and it will no longer work well. To solve this problem, buy several different bait products containing different active ingredients. The first time you put baits out, select one of them and use it. . . .Jul 29, 2015"



Indoor Ant Control | Pesticide Research Institute


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Ni Nik, makes sense. I will have to check what Terro uses and see if I can find something different.

Tim, either wiped them all out or still too early, I think too early to tell. 

Noted from my post I still have to pick up some Terro Plus.

I will let all know how the progress goes.

Bud


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

We have an old house and every year a few ants work their way in, usually found on the downstairs bathroom floor or by the back door. We have more ladybugs than anything else. My wife hates bugs so she gets insecticide in a bottle that hooks up to the hose. She hoses down the house and the lawn about 10 feet out from the house. Then bug free for a year.


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## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

Just don't ask for my Ant Lions. - - NOT AVAILABLE - OUT OF STOCK - -:smile:


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