Ants

[Warren Lake]

My neighbour is 93 in a few weeks and has lived in the same home for nearly 90 years. She has had an issue with small ants each year and when we get older we stress more or many do. She is an anti chemical person and sure i looked up once and read about some not to bad stuff.

Its a really old two storey home with a crawl space only under the middle part of the home. The whole in the kitchen floor to go down there is so narrow it wont down through it again, did years ago and not impressed.

She is really clean there never leaves stuff out. Does have two cats and maybe the food attracts them.

If she would let me cut a larger whole in the floor id go into the crawl space and poke about. There has to be something going on down there approx one outside wall in the crawl space. They are tiny ants its winter and shes had this every year. I could buy her an Ardvark but not sure what the cats would think.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I avoid pesticides but do use Borax products as a last resort. We have an invasion of tiny ants for a few weeks most springs. I put out Terro liquid ant bait when they get bad.
Borax, the active ingredient in TERRO® Ant Killer and TERRO® Liquid Ant Baits, is a natural ingredient that has a low level of toxicity for humans, but is deadly to ants.

[Mel Fulks]

Agree with Terro , it works.

[Mike Henderson]

You can spray ammonia on the ants you can see in the home and that will both kill them and stop them from coming back to that location. But it does not kill the rest of the ants.

Mike

[Bill Howatt]

For outside, I make up about 8% 20 Mule Team Borax mixed in with the cheapest syrup I can get at the grocery store - maple or regular. Usually apply to driveway cracks.

Inside, my wife likes a mix of 2TBSP Borax, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup of warm water. She puts down a little piece of foil (don't think that has any ant attractive properties), cotton ball and puts some of the solution on it. It needs to be refreshed every couple of days since it will dry out.

You might go around the foundation and spray where the siding, if any, overhands the foundation as one place to put it.

Suggest you look into Borax and cats, the stuff isn't totally benign in all concentrations. Easy to make a cover that will let ants in but weighted to keep the cat away.

[Tom M King]

Terro is just Borax in solution with some sweetener that the little ants like. It works great on the little ants. It doesn’t take many drops either.

[Ron Citerone]

I have had great luck with Terro. If they swarm to it first day it will eventually kill them. I have had a few rare instances, for reasons unknown to me, they ignored the terro and then had to spray. Again terro usually knocks em out.

[Warren Lake]

could not have anything around that could affect the cats. If I think of the home the room she sees them most is has no basement and used to be a block garage. She sees them there then lately a few inside in her kitchen. They are small. Id think under the floor then in the crawl space but up high near the joists and floor board as that is where it is near in the past garage room and its also where her kitchen is. They must be under there so if stuff was put there in some fashion no cats are down there so it would be away from them. Just im not going through the hole in the floor anymore. I guess I could look at the opening again and what the construction is.

When I gave her my dryer it was a whole adventure into the land of the unknown. It got done but there was surgery to the machine and surgery to the kitchen floor to have it pumped to where it was past. There is a negative as its pumping her dry air into the crawl space then a positive a bit more so she doesnt use hot, she old lower heats I better for some stuff.

Her husbands brother landed on Juno beach and was a sniper there and made it back here and continued on farming. I always tried to help them both in anyway. An unseen value to a home are neighbours.

[Mark Wedel]

I'm having an issue with ants myself. I think one cause is with the wet weather, the ants are looking for someplace dry, and the house qualifies. I also suspect that with it being winter (only now moving into spring), there just wasn't as much food outside - I know they will farm aphids in the summer, and there tends to be some dropped fruit or other things for them to munch on that does not exist now.

I've been using advion ant gel (which is a chemical pesticide), but I'll put a glob in the crack between the cabinet and the wall or other spots where the ants can get it, but other things can't. It is generally effective, but this year seems worse than usual - I'll kill one infestation, and then a week later, another one will start.

[Lee Schierer]

When I gave her my dryer it was a whole adventure into the land of the unknown. It got done but there was surgery to the machine and surgery to the kitchen floor to have it pumped to where it was past. There is a negative as its pumping her dry air into the crawl space then a positive a bit more so she doesnt use hot, she old lower heats I better for some stuff.

Please tell us that the drier isn't exhausting into the crawl space. If it is blowing the exhaust air into the crawl space, that is a really bad idea. All that moisture will encourage mold and rot.

[Alan Rutherford]

Borax AFAIK is close as close to non-toxic to humans as you can get, as long as you don't breathe it in powder form. It works by getting in the exterior skeletal parts of critters like ants and cockroaches and breaking them down, like rocks in your transmission. I spray the powder lightly along walls and other places, and it can stay largely unnoticed while it waits for critters.

But I think she needs the Aardvark. The cats would be OK with it - they'd probably eat it.

Lee makes a good point about the drier exhaust.

[Bill Dufour]

Borax AKA Terro takes a few days to work. They eat some and go home and feed/groom each other. In a few days everyone in the nest, including the queen, has had a dose and it kills them.
The first 24 hours you will see more ants at the bait and think it is not working.
Bill D

[Warren Lake]

yeah that is how her husband had done it and the dryer I took out a few years ago was 59 years old. Ive been in the crawl space past and no visual mold under there or issues shes not running hot and think less from that.. Her dryer is in the kitchen and been that way since it was put in then i gave her my maytag when hers finally packed it in. Had to cut my machine apart and pipe it out the bottom then cut a new hole in her floor and plug the old. Turned into an adventure more so when i found a double joist in the floor and spacing was already less than 16"

Good point about seeing more ill ask her again today sounds like she did the sugar and water and borax but going to check with her daughter today.

[Edward Weber]

I spread out diatomaceous earth, this takes care of them IME

[Keegan Shields]

Are they dark, tiny ants? Could be Rover Ants. The traditional sugar/borax based baits don't seem to work very well.

Following the ants and blocking their entry points is the only thing that worked for me.

[Bill Dufour]

There are sugar ants and grease ants. Different tastes need different baits to work.
Bill D

[Warren Lake]

Emailed her daughter with some questions, thanks for all input so far.

[Jason Roehl]

Having had to deal with pest control professionals at work for a number of years now, I’ve learned a few things. Ants can go in cycles—they may want sugary foods for a time, and they may want protein-rich foods. If a bait made of one of those isn’t working, try the other.

I use a couple different ones—Advion (indoxacarb) works well indoors. I did get some from the exterminator at work, so there’s that, but it comes in a syringe, and you just lay a 1/16”ish x 1” strip in the path of the ants. Outdoors, I use a granular bait that contains abamectin, like Advance 375A. If I know of a nest, I’ll sprinkle it liberally in that area, otherwise, every couple years, I’ll do a light sprinkle all the way around the foundation of the house about 2’ wide. The exterminators I know have also recommended Niban, but I’ve not used that one.

The thing about modern insecticides is that many of them are completely non-toxic to humans. They contain enzymes or proteins that target and disrupt specific biological processes in insects that are not present in humans. They’re also typical made in a very, very low concentration of the active ingredient so your risk of exposure is miniscule unless you’re directly ingesting it. If you have a spray designed to leave a residue, don’t spray a fine mist, but use a stream or large droplet setting on your pump sprayer nozzle. Don’t eat it or use it on food-contact surfaces.

When it comes to ants, don’t ever spray them, particularly if you find a nest. Survivors will simply move the nest (and there will always be some survivors when you spray). You may end up with a nest in a worse location.

[Stan Calow]

After a few years of it, I gave up and called the pros. Terro worked, but they were already inside the house by then - looking for water was the exterminator's explanation. He sprayed a long-lasting pesticide around the outside perimeter and doors and windows, and it works well. Better living through chemistry.

[Mel Fulks]

After a few years of it, I gave up and called the pros. Terro worked, but they were already inside the house by then - looking for water was the exterminator's explanation. He sprayed a long-lasting pesticide around the outside perimeter and doors and windows, and it works well. Better living through chemistry.

that’s what they call an “ant deceased dent” in English class

[Jim Koepke]

Ants can be interesting. Candy is driven crazy by ants. We do not have many in our area that enter the house. Outside I have seen four or five different species of ants, from small black ants, redish ants and large carpenter ants.

When we lived in the San Francisco bay area of California we would often have ant invasions. Most of the ants in our area then were Argentine Ants. They can have some rather large colonies.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ant

Some of the largest biological masses are made up of Argentine Ants.

jtk