Anyone ever solved the problem of huge numbers of ants in the house? This happens in drought times. House is over 60 years old, so, I am sure has numerous entry points. How the heck would you find them? On a slab. Maybe I need to buy some spray foam to seal holes. I put some dry dogfood out in the flower bed next to the house hoping it would draw the ants and that seeme to work but after a few days, they are back. My plan was... once they are outside eating dogfood, spray something at the base of the slab all the way around the house that would prevent them from entering. I have no idea what that substance would be. I could hire local pest control but would rather DIY if possible. I don't like to use chemicals unless I have to but will if no other solution. When I say ants, I mean hundreds, thousands. We have problems with fire ants around here in our yards but these are not fire ants, these are smaller. Haven't had a problem with stings like fire ants do, these are just annoying it's so many! I would also like to find all cracks/holes to keep mice out. Another concern is I have a dog that will eat any dang thing.
You can do a perimeter spray but I would not spray inside specifically for ants. The spray will just divert them to a different area. Get the dog food out of the yard that's not helping anything. I would bait the ants, I use maxforce quantum by bayer ( can be ordered online), it is $30 for a tube but an exterminator will be 100 bucks at least, then they will want a follow up which will cost even more. I am using a tube I bought 6 years ago still works great. The worker ants take the bait back to the queen/nest and all of them perish. Lay down the bait in a highly trafficked area, the problem will appear to get worse and then they will be gone. The toxicity is low, a pet would have to eat the whole tube of bait to get sick but I would keep pets away from the baiting area. This is what I would do when I worked for a pest control company.
Used to get pizz ants every year until I started spraying this around the foundation. Works for other ants too. Didn’t have any pizz ants this spring summer.
Yep, Terro Ant Bait works great. I pour out a little puddle in different high traffic areas... and the ants are gone within a week.
I used this stuff this year. Usually they come in for a couple of weeks in the spring and then leave. This year those didn't leave and I had some others trying to make their home in the eaves (they had a highway up the side of the house). Put a bait along each of their highways and it wasn't too long before they were gone. Putting food outside the house doesn't help at all - it draws more ants who then set up shop nearby along with the ones you already have..
Another vote for Terro. Simply put, it works! In Spring and again late summer use the ant dust and draw a line at the foundation. On porches and even indoors I prefer the liquid ant baits. The one in the middle above can be used also and is cheaper but can be messy.
sometimes we get ants that leave the terro traps alone. The killer ingredient is Borax (basically an old laundry cleaner/household cleaner). I have tried several concoctions to lure them - peanut butter, sugar, etc. They seemed to love the mouthwash residue on the side of the mouthwash bottle. Tried mixing borax with that too. They went wild for discarded corn cobs. So, made a batch of borax and put it on the corn cobs... Finally got rid of them with various baits and borax. Also sprayed a natural ant repellent spray. It contained cinnamon oil, rosemary oil, and other things.
In early spring, soon as the snow is gone, I spray the entire foundation from the ground to up under the edge of the bottom lap of siding with a product called Ortho Home Defense. I also spray around all windows, doors and siding overlaps plus any entry point for pipes such as the AC unit piping ect. Its supposed to last 12 months but I apply it again in late summer just to make sure. The other thing I do is sprinkle a trail of Terro ant killer granules a couple feet out around the entire House and detached garage. I do this soon as the snow is gone as well. They take it back to the colony as food and it kills them all. We rarely have any bugs in the house of any type since I started this yearly routine.
I live on a slab, never used terro but use amdro bait instead. Or the boric acid and sugar solution. Both seem to do the job of knocking them down and out.
Twice in the last 2 weeks we got the tiny ants in the kitchen. First time i put a Terro liquid ant bait out the first day and they were gone the second day. Second time they were coming in through a window in the kitchen, i moved the terro to the window sill and it took about 1.5 days and they were gone. In the past we've used Home Defense Max for the big black ants. It's been a few years and haven't seen any of them.
