# Ant infestation!



## joanne_m27

Hundreds of ants have infested our house! I'm not sure where they're coming from but i think somehow they are managing to seep through the brickwork as they have started to appear throughout small holes in the walls at the top of our landing as well as under the lino flooring in our kitchen. What could i use to kill them?


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## skymaster

Call Exterminator now. Explain "holes in the wall"????? Ya mean they have tunneled thru the drywall and come into the house this way? That is bad if true.
CALL
JackM


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## ocoee

Ants are easy to kill, you just have to destroy the nest

What kind of ants are they
Small or large?
What color?
What are there trailing habits?

Don't call the pros just yet they are usually over rated


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## MinConst

ocoee said:


> Don't call the pros just yet they are usually over rated


Depends on where you live. We moved to Florida last year and without a "Pro" we would still have ants. I did everything I could before calling in a professional. Since then we have had none. Might be different in other places but here you need a bug guy.


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## ocoee

I live near you


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## joeyboy

uhh, damnit!  

I live in central FL and was just about to start a thread on this.

We moved into this place ~ 2 or 3 months ago. Had a little bit of an ant issue. Put 'grants ant killer' stakes all over the place, outside and inside. I used 30 stakes so far (these are stakes that have food + arsenic, so the ants bring the arsenic trioxide back to their colony and it kills them all). 

At first, it was working fine, until maybe 5 days ago.

We had no ants, the stakes were great, then one day there was a line of ants connecting my cat's food bowl to the office wall. They were just walking there and back, half one way, half the other.

Found the hole they were getting into the block house through and sealed with expanding great stuff foam. Put 3 grants stakes outside near the hole. Put 7 (7!) stakes in the office all around their path and their entry point at the wall. This worked for about a day or two, now they're back again.



Is there really nothing short of calling in exterminators? What sprays are they using that I can't get at home depot?


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## steve771

I've had good luck with Demon WP (Wettable Powder) for roaches, and it's listed for ants as well. Do a google for it... it's relatively inexpensive and pretty easy to apply.


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## slakker

I've used baited Diatomaceous Earth quite sucessfully with ants...


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## MinConst

Who knows what the heii they use. It works and its the best money spent. I personally don't like trying all these chemicals not knowing what I'm doing. Thee are kids, pets around that it might effect.
The bug guys need to me a living too so why not give them the job they know best. It really isn't that expensive when you consider all you go through trying to do what they do in a day. Since we have Joe we don't have ants. They did just what joeyboy described and it's called trails.


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## redline

Remove any food/water source and they will not have a reason to stay around.


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## joeyboy

redline said:


> Remove any food/water source and they will not have a reason to stay around.


i don't think my cat would like me removing his water/food bowls very much....


BTW, is redline referring to cars, or the energy pills? Either way, right on! :thumbsup:


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## redline

joeyboy said:


> i don't think my cat would like me removing his water/food bowls very much....
> 
> 
> BTW, is redline referring to cars, or the energy pills? Either way, right on! :thumbsup:


 
Found this on the web -not sure if it works.....


Get some Boraxo powdered soap and some corn syrup. Heat the corn syrup, do not let it boil, then mix in the boraxo! They will eat the stuff and take it back to the queen. It will kill them. Mix about 1/2cup syrup with 1/2 table spoons of Boraxo. Pour some of it, a dime size will do, on some paper and place it where they are at. 


(redline=porsche 911 turbo)


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## ocoee

Rules of ant treatment


The only way to cure the problem is to kill the nest.

If you see dead ants, the bait ain't working

If they take the bait for a few days and you see a reduction in ants and then you see a resurgence, you just created bait shy ants

Baiting is generally the least effective way to treat ants, it's just usually the most convenient

Hot rainy season is ant in the house season

And rulele one identify the pest ant 

Kill the queen and many species will simply elect a new queen
Kill too many foragers and the colony will sense danger and split or bud
Every time they bud they feel the need to bring the new colony up to full capacity before budding again

Different species of ant act and forage different ways, there is no catch all treatment that so many people want to
Many ants, Argentine, Crazy, Big Headed and Carpenter generally don't respond well to baits
Ghost ants may or may not
Fire ants and Pharoahs usually do

But the best method is still find and destroy the nest
_
Oh and the bugman probably will misidentify the ant also because he is too busy to check the chart or simply does not know how_


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## elementx440

joeyboy said:


> What sprays are they using that I can't get at home depot?


BIFEN I/T aka TALSTAR, you can get it on ebay. that's what some pros use. kills just about any bug that moves... seems to have worked for me, no more ants (carpentar)


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## redline

I have heard people pouring hot boiling water into the nest to kill them but I have not used this so do not know how effective it is.


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## joeyboy

Ya I've read that too, although I figured why even bother with boiling water if I can just use borax/boric acid mixed in the water? 


Yeah, seems like they've gotten good at avoiding my baits (the more I learn about ants, the more in awe I am of them. Smart lil creatures!). I guess I'm gonna have to find that colony!! (or should I assume colonies? Guess I'll find out after killing the first!)


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## ocoee

> What sprays are they using that I can't get at home depot?


Not many.
Some may just have different names
Combat is a good example

For years, and possibly still, the public could not buy Maxforce products because they were labeled for professional use only

The only difference between Maxforce and Combat is the label
Same company, same packaging

The trick is to find the active ingredient and then match that with a OTC product

Imidicloprid isthe favored AI for now

Bifenthrin is a restricted use pesticide, so few companies are using it these days
There are many better products for carpenter ants that do not pose the environmental hazard that Talstar does and do not require breaking the law to buy
I never found it to be the product it was claimed to be anyway


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## ocoee

> although I figured why even bother with boiling water if I can just use borax/boric acid mixed in the water?


Mounds are constructed so that the queens chamber will never flood
Boiling water will kill of some but not all of the ants and they will move the queen out to repopulate very quickly

Aerosols pyrethrins work great

Use a tip with a straw attachment and give three to four, more or less depending on the size of the nest, quick blasts with the straw inserted into the nest an inch or so

You should be able to see the vapors coming back out of the holes this will effectively fumigate the nest and kill all ants inside

Placing a bait in or on the nest will also not be very effective, you have to place the bait where they can find it through normal foraging activities


Baits can be tricky
If you injure a colony but do not kill it with these baits that colony and it's decendants will never take that bait or any bait using that base again

If the bait's active ingredient is too strong you will have the counter productive effect of forcing the colony to split

They send out a certain number of foragers if enough foragers,within the accepted range of loss, do not come back the colony senses danger and will move or bud/split
If the bait is so strong that it kills the foragers before they can get back to the nest the bait obviously will not work
before anyone mentions grits, they fall into that category
They queens and larvae are fed liquid not solid food so it will never get to them, but you will get that impressive body count that actually means very little


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## skymaster

Joey, so far you have wasted more time and effort and still have em than had you just called and problem would have already been taken care of:thumbsup:


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## joeyboy

skymaster said:


> Joey, so far you have wasted more time and effort and still have em than had you just called and problem would have already been taken care of:thumbsup:


If I was into calling a professional and paying them, instead of doing things myself, I wouldn't be posting in DIYchatroom in the first place :thumbsup:


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## joeyboy

I've wasted like, 10 minutes. I grabbed ant stakes at home depot while there for other things, and then put them around the house. 


Anyways, I just got back from another home depot trip - I have a pound of powdered ortho-boric acid, and am going to look up how to use it.

Ocoee, so pouring the water / poisons in won't get the queen? Then there'd be no point! I wish people didn't post articles online saying to pour 3 gallons of boiling water into the mound, cuz that'll totally kill the queen!!

Ocoee, any advice you wanna give me that you don't think I'll find on my own regarding this powdered ortho-boric acid would be great!


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## joeyboy

some updates 


orthoboric acid IS just another name for boric acid

it can be mixed in with water

it seems to be very, very safe compared to any other products I've been using.






Well, I found where their nesting - I have a palm (type?) tree near the house, and it's got 3 main trunks that meet at the ground - in their intersection is where the ants are going... Gonna check around real quick to see if it's okay to use the boric acid there or if it'll kill my palm...


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## ocoee

> If I was into calling a professional and paying them, instead of doing things myself, I wouldn't be posting in DIYchatroom in the first place


Thank you
This is one of my pet peeves
Pros are not intellectually superior we just have superior knowledge through experience
That knowledge can be passed on easily once we get over ourselves just a little
All it take is patience and the realization that we did not always know it all
Yes I am a pro


Joey
Boric acid will not kill your tree and you can mix it with water

If you mix it with water make sure that it can be sprayed and that you continuously agitate the mixture to avoid clogs

Boric acid is one of the oldest, most versatile and safest pesticides on the market
It is used in emergency eye washes and laundry soap

Personally I would not have chosen this method, but I'm a pro and we don't think like that

_Actually it is because it doesn't work fast enough and I don't like call backs that I don't get paid for, keep this in mind when using it

_There is no reason that treating the base of the palm would not work, especially if you make sure that they do not have another avenue to escape
Treat your house with it also
Spray a perimeter band up to the level of the windows and around all windows and doors

if you use it as a bait
Use very little, you don't want it to work to quickly
I think the percentage in Terro is about 5% and I would cut that with another sweet liquid
Standard recipe was 1 part Terro to 2 parts syrup, honey or even water
OI would change up the flavors of syrup t prevent bait shyness


Boiling water looks impressive because of the massive body count
But also fire ants have mutated or evolved

When I was a kid you would see one tall fire ant mound for about a 1/4 acre or so
That is because the fire ants would hunt and kill anything in that zone including other fire ants
We did a very good job of killing these easy to find ants so nature and survival took over
You now see low almost flat mounds with several in close proximity
That is because they are cousins and no longer attack each other

The old single queen species evolved into the polygyn species that we have today

Thus
Kill the queen and they simply select another, and she may be among the group that is not in the mound at the time of the boiling water application


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## ocoee

Are these ant black with long legs and bent antennae ?


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## joeyboy

Are you asking me about my ants? If so, the kid at the local home depot told me they sounded like sugar ants, although wiki seems to think those are australia only (i'm in FL).


Anyways, I think the problem *may* be under control. Every morning, there's the same line from my cat's bowl, to the office wall. I know they have their nests out there.

Last night was the attack.

Today, not a single ant at his bowl (even after heavy killing/arsenic baiting there's still a couple there).


What I did last night.

1) made 4 piles of their favorite food (my cat's dry food lol) and marked with shims.
2) waited hours until they found the piles and had their little lines going back and forth with the food.
3) used about 1/4 pound (roughly a fourth of my 99% pure boric acid bottle) of my powdered boric acid, I put it in a rinsed milk jug, filled completely with hot water, and shook til I had a blue liquid. 
4) followed their little trails, easily found where they entered the ground, and dumped my solution into it. I think I found 6 spots, and I spread the gallon pretty evenly through all of them


And this morning I went out there and hosed the spots (since 3 of their homes were the bases of mature plants) down a ton to hopefully rinse the boric acid, as I didn't check ocoee's response before going out lol. 


That stuff I used cost under $5, adn this morning when I was rinsing the spots I doused, I saw zero activity, so I think it worked pretty well.


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## ocoee

double post


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## ocoee

You could also use one of those hose end sprayers for powdered fertilizer like peters or miracle grow

The activity you describe sounds like either Crazy ant or related/Robust crazy ants

Both form super colonies and are active foragers

Keep a lookout for satellites

Oh, tell the kid at Home Depot not to quit his day job.
There is no such thing as sugar ants. There are sweet feeding nd grease feeding ants and that sometimes is only dependent on the life cycle of the nest at that time


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## joeyboy

Ya that kid did seem a little clueless - that's why I come here for advice haha. But I still tend to ask questions while there, just to get more opinions.

Also I've read about that, at diff times of the year they have different macronutrient requirements, interesting stuff. I actually find ants really interesting, wish I wasn't at war with them lol.



I'm considering doing the boric acid powder around the whole edge of the problem areas (kitchen corner / office), I imagine this is just drilling holes in the lower parts of the wall and spraying powder (would I do this between every stud?). Their activity seemed nonexistant after the boric acid dousings, but now I've been seeing a couple here and there, so gonna have to do more...


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## ocoee

Mostly we just dusted behind switch plates, around windows and any cracks we find in the walls

When you apply the dust don't over do it

Most people want to apply these barriers lines around the perimeter
Dust should be applied as a thin film like household dust (at my house)

If you use it in a bait apply th bait where you don't mind the ants being if you apply it on the kitchen counters where everyone else does you will have to put up with them for awhile

We also used to mix up a peanut butter based bait or apple jelly and put it in the switch plates to keep them in the walls

Customers thought we were miracle workers because the ants saw no need to come out in the open if the food was in the walls with them


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## WILDLILY

Joeyboy- I tried sprinkling cayenne powder around the side of the house they were coming in and it stopped them. I guess ants don't like it hot!:laughing:


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## joeyboy

WILDLILY said:


> Joeyboy- I tried sprinkling cayenne powder around the side of the house they were coming in and it stopped them. I guess ants don't like it hot!:laughing:


lol that's crazy! Funny too! 

I want to sprinkle boric acid along my house's foundation on the parts I think they're coming in, but I'm also starting a lawn from seed and am paranoid it'll mess up my lawn once it starts blowing all over. So, I've just been keeping them at bay with baits. Need to do something major because the baits are totally just a bandaid solution here.


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## ocoee

Boric wont hurt the grass unless you way over do it
I had a friend back in the 80s that spread his entire yard with it to try to get rid of a flea infestation

Didn't do anything to the lawn, or fleas


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## joeyboy

that's good to know, i'll def be doing an outside perimeter sweep then! I've since done the dust lines in my office (and kept the office off limits so nobody would go in - I know you gotta clean the dust up once it's been there, but I'm letting it really seep in, then gonna brush it under the baseboards).


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## doublesharp

http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/termidor.htm

I use termidor and have dealt with this company several times.


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## ocoee

Are they selling Termidor OTC now
I wouldn't know I have never had to buy pesticides for over 25 years

If so there is your answer
Follow the directions and don't get over zealous they are written for a reason
You can do more harm than good by over applying


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## joeyboy

ocoee said:


> Are they selling Termidor OTC now
> I wouldn't know I have never had to buy pesticides for over 25 years
> 
> If so there is your answer
> Follow the directions and don't get over zealous they are written for a reason
> You can do more harm than good by over applying


Haha right off the bat I can tell you I prolly wouldn't use it!

I have a weird thing about poison products, you should see me gear up when I'm doing a roundup application. My approach is all baits so I know my poisons' are contained, and the only loose stuff is borax, which is way safe. 

(I actually know where a hornets' hangout is, but they're not much of a problem so I haven't even used the hornet spray I bought, I'm waiting until they're a problem before I gas them lol!)


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## ocoee

I'm not going to try to argue you out of it

I've been doing this for 25 years and still hate most of the chemicals we use


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## joeyboy

ocoee said:


> I'm not going to try to argue you out of it
> 
> I've been doing this for 25 years and still hate most of the chemicals we use


There's nothing to argue me out of :thumbsup: 

I don't mind them being there doing their thing - it's just that if they mess with me (hornet stinging someone on my property, ants eating my cat's food) I'll deal with them. I'll use the chemicals needed when necessary, I'm just the kind of person who sees leaving a small hornet problem as the lesser of two evils. If they sting, it's chemical warfare :nuke: :nuke: :thumbsup:


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## WILDLILY

*ant infestation*

Joeyboy-Try the Cayenne- I ain't kidding -it worked, non poisonous too.


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## joeyboy

WILDLILY said:


> Joeyboy-Try the Cayenne- I ain't kidding -it worked, non poisonous too.


no need - problem's solved! Will keep it in mind though if they have a resurgence (sp?), which is always a looming possibility!!


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