# Ant Help



## SeniorSitizen (Sep 10, 2012)

Those little buggers are after your food so be a tight wad don't even share the crumbs.
On the house exterior, a good coating of 5% Seven dust a couple inches wide around the perimeter will go a long way inhibiting home invasion of ants.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

Get yourself some Terro liquid ant killer. Put it out on little squares of cardboard and set them along the path that the ants are seen. They will feast on this stuff and take it back to their nest where they will feed it to the queen, resulting in the whole colony dying. 

https://www.amazon.com/Terro-Liquid-Ant-Killer-T200/dp/B0015031R8


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## siffleur (Aug 19, 2013)

newhomeowner9 said:


> So for the last 2 months or so we've had tiny, 1/8th inch black ants meandering around our house along walls/the edge of the room--fast forward to today and after leaving the kitchen for 2 hours my fiancee came back to a counter and backsplash full of hundreds of these little buggers. I've tried liquid bait traps and Ortho indoor/outdoor home defense. This last pop up had me call an exterminator who says he's gonna assess our situation and spray for a whopping 140$. But my concern is the likelihood of them being in the walls. The area's they pop in mainly coincidentally all share the same wall. Kitchen is below our 2nd floor office, and the wall which my fiancee's desk is on, the only spot in the office that ever has ants is the same wall that the counters/outlets/cabinetry are all on. They also appear in the bathroom which is also adjoined to said wall. My initial thought was to simply pop the sockets out and use a bug fogger/bomb inside the wall but apparently that's not safe structurally for the wall.
> 
> Any and all help is welcome!


As I understand, ants are attracted to a number of things, one of which is water. You might check and see if there is a constant source of moisture that the ants are making use of.

Another item is diatomaceous earth (DE). DE is the dried exoskeletons of tiny sea creatures. These exoskeletons are very small and very sharp. You sprinkle this earth (in a dust form) around the house where you see ants or other insects walking about. The ants will get this dust on them and it will shred the ants' exoskeletons, but is harmless to humans. Humans can even ingest food grade DE to help get rid of parasites. Do a search on DE and insects/ants and see what comes up.

siffleur


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## monkeyfarmer (Dec 10, 2016)

From what I understand the ants are coming from under the counters? If so, you may want to consider pulling cabinets away from wall, vacuuming the area, sealing edge of wall with some silicone, then sprinkle a bunch of boric acid and poison granules under cabinet, then put cabinets back on top the poison. I had to do that before and solved the ant issue. If you have a slab foundation like I do, it only takes a tiny crack or hole near the edge for them to get in.

If you seal this area where they are coming in at, they will likely come out of the walls and go elsewhere.


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## Marson (Jan 26, 2018)

We're always battling little sugar ants. Best luck has been "Hot Shot" ant traps. Poor luck with Terro for some reason. Just got to keep after them.


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## monkeyfarmer (Dec 10, 2016)

Advion ant gel bait works pretty good for baiting them, but have to seal also.


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## PestGuy (Jan 15, 2018)

Your best bet is to just do a perimeter sweep of the foundation outside and locate the trail where they are getting into the home..


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

I'm no expert, but I'd start with this: What do they eat?

Do they make a trail to any dropped sweets? Sugar-eating ants.
Do they make a trail to any dropped grease or butter? Grease-eating ants.
Do they not seem to eat anything at all, are big and black, not make trails and just mill around inside the house? May be carpenter ants.

Different approaches to eliminating them for each type.


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## PestGuy (Jan 15, 2018)

Ants prefer different foods during the different seasons.


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

PestGuy said:


> Ants prefer different foods during the different seasons.


Never knew that, thanks! I was just thinking you need to put out whatever bait matches the thing they eat.


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