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Zupper
Premium Member
join:2002-12-28
Novelty, OH

Zupper

Premium Member

Recommendations to kill ants (inside)

Over the past few weeks, we have been noticing ants marching around the kitchen area gathering food bits.

They appear to be "common" ants, which I have usually referred to as "slab ants". There are definitely not the large black ants, which are usually carpenter ants.

These are clearly attracted to food bits, especially sweet ones.

I have tried 2 different bait style traps. The first were metallic cans with holes on the sides. They did not appear to bother with these. Since these were also quite old, I thought they may not be effective anymore. Next I tried another brand, which had a plastic housing with a single entrance hole. Clearly, the ants are not bothering with these either.

So, I opened up the plastic housing, and took the bait out (a kind of "gel" blob, about the size of a starburst candy) and put that directly out in the open. With that, I have seen the ants checking it out, but certainly not swarming it like they do with food.

I have permethrin powder, which could kill the ones I see, but I want to wipe out whatever colony they are coming from. This would seem to require a bait style product.

Anyone have product suggestions for the most effective bait poison?

Thanks.

Just Rachel
occasional optimist
Premium Member
join:2003-07-10

Just Rachel

Premium Member

You need to get rid of the "food bits" before anything else.
dmagerl
Premium Member
join:2007-08-06
Woodstock, IL

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If they're sugar eating ants, Combat Ant Killing Gel is quite effective. I've bought it at Ace Hardware and occasionly have seen it at Home Depot. It's slow acting so they take it back to the nest.

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

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boric acid and sugar
Dodge
Premium Member
join:2002-11-27

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Found a couple of links for you. Only use these if you don't have any pets in the house as most pesticides will kill your pet just as easily as they will kill the insects.

Don't know how effective this is as they are peddling their own baits and sprays, but information seems to be there:

»www.epestsupply.com/ants.htm

There is also:
»www.getridofthings.com/g ··· ants.htm
and
»www.grinningplanet.com/2 ··· icle.htm

both suggest boric acid, the last one suggests diluting boric acid in sugarwater and letting the foragers destroy the colony.

Good luck.

smithfly114
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join:2008-01-14

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Best product I have ever used....

»www.biconet.com/crawlers ··· nbox.jpg

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

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»www.killsbugsdead.com/fop_ab.asp work well for me.
Put one in every single corner of every room in the house, under the kitchen cabinets, in the bathrooms, etc. Everywhere, but out the way of pets and children.

If you do this, within a few days, they will be gone.

BUT you have to get rid of your 'food bits', you have to keep your place clean.

Warzau
Premium Member
join:2000-10-26
Naperville, IL

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Terro worked great for me »www.terro.com/ you can email them and they respond quickly.
bkjohnson
Premium Member
join:2002-05-22
Birmingham, AL

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Many people have reported success with that stuff, so I tried it. Interestingly, it did not work on the ants in my house. Over about a 3 week period, it attracted more and more ants, who seemed to feed on it night and day. They came in through a small hole in a bathroom cabinet top. I finally became frustrated and poked one of those WD-40 like tubes that come with Bengal Roach killer in the hole and gave them a blast. It stopped them for a long time. I use a professional 4 times a year now. He has his own small company and seems to really keep up with developments in his field.

Warzau
Premium Member
join:2000-10-26
Naperville, IL

Warzau

Premium Member

From all the literature, that was the point.

Q: I think the baits are attracting the ants, not killing them!

A: Initially you will see more ants. The ants see the TERRO Liquid as a food source. Once a forging worker ant has found a food source they drop what it called a trail pheromone back to the nest, letting all the other worker ants know where a food supply has been found. With this said, seeing more ants is a good thing for you are killing more ants.

Also, depending on the size of your colony will determine how long it will take to eliminate all the ants. Sometimes, with larger colonies, other treatments are necessary. After baiting and once you have noticed a decline in the number of ants it is recommended to use a follow up crack and crevice treatment. We suggest using our TERRO Ant Killer Spray. Use this on remaining ants wherever possible indoors or outdoors; in hiding places, behind sinks, cabinets, along baseboards and floors, and around drains and plumbing. A perimeter treatment around the outside of the home with a residual product like TERRO Ant Dust will also help repel ants from re-entering the structure.

The combination of these three treatment techniques will solve even the toughest of ant problems!

Phil
Rojo Sol
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join:2001-06-11
Downers Grove, IL

1 edit

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The house I bought last November was overrun with ants. Any food that was left out was almost immediately swarmed upon. After trying Grant's Ant Killer which effectively did absolutely nothing, we got Terro liquid bait (not ironically from a recommendation here). They devoured this stuff (a drop on a sheet of paper) and after 1-2 weeks and multiple applications the ants are gone. I haven't even seen any scout ants which was always the norm.

The great thing about the Terro solution is that is only cost a few dollars and we still have about 90% of the bottle left, so any revisit by the ants can be easily dealt with.

Zupper
Premium Member
join:2002-12-28
Novelty, OH

Zupper

Premium Member

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'll try to find some of that terro stuff, and see if that works.

BTW, We constantly clean up the food bits. With 3 little ones, that's nearly a full time job.

smann
join:2001-02-04
Midlothian, VA

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Another happy Terro customer. They ate the stuff like crazy and were gone within 2 weeks. Just keep the liquid fresh and it will work it's magic.

ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA

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said by Zupper:

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'll try to find some of that terro stuff, and see if that works.

Home Depot or Lowes
Langning
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join:2003-04-28
Marlborough, MA

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Splenda and nutrasweet poisonous?
I just discovered something creepy. sucralose aka: Splenda or aspartame aka:nutrasweet (nutra my ar$e) will kill ants,cocraches, house flies and I don't know what all else yet, but it kills ants, kills the entire colony quite efficiently
»au.answers.yahoo.com/que ··· 0AALTP1s

I used it outside foundation & driveway of my house. I don't know how effective it is as my house were also treated for termites 2 years ago (by Terminix). I used to see a lot of black ants indoor, they are gone now.

gillespie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-28
USA

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You beat me to it. Boric acid works wonders, as somebody else stated, clean up the area of food real well then sprinkle the boric acid along the baseboards and in front of any entrance doors.

Rxdoxx

join:2000-11-03
Middle River, MD

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Just adding in that I have used Boric Acid for many many years. Big plus is toxicity

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boric_acid
quote:
Based on mammal median lethal dose (LD50) rating of 2,660 mg/kg body mass, boric acid is poisonous if taken internally or inhaled. However, it is generally considered to be not much more toxic than table salt.
Love not having to worry about eating something I dropped on the floor in the kitchen

CKizer
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join:2003-01-29
Tijeras, NM

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Syngenta DemonMAX
Best stuff ever...

pro7070
BJ "The Prodigy" Penn
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Inman, SC

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I had an ant problem a while back and had to call an exterminator. He sprayed some stuff for them and they havn't came back.

But we had a bunch of plastic bags under our counters (saved grocery bags), and he said to get rid of them because ants will lay their eggs in them. So if you have any plastic bags you may want to throw them away while you are at it.
Langning
Premium Member
join:2003-04-28
Marlborough, MA

1 edit

Langning

Premium Member

said by pro7070:

because ants will lay their eggs in them.
I always think the queen ant is worm-like and dones't travel and go out for food (that is the job of worker ants). And there is only 1 queen per colony.

Boricua
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join:2002-01-26
Sacramuerto

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Weird as it is, when I had an ant problem (a few weeks ago), I used Formula 409 where the line of ants were walking on the ground.
said by Warzau:

Once a forging worker ant has found a food source they drop what it called a trail pheromone back to the nest,

lindybowers
join:2009-01-26
Long Island

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Use boric acid or Borax in equal parts with SWEET & LOW which was originally developed in the lab to kill rats and insects. Aspertame is a powerful poison and its in most every diet product.

»www.rense.com/general38/ ··· ther.htm

Cho Baka
MVM
join:2000-11-23
there

Cho Baka

MVM

said by lindybowers:

Use boric acid or Borax in equal parts with SWEET & LOW which was originally developed in the lab to kill rats and insects. Aspertame is a powerful poison and its in most every diet product.

»www.rense.com/general38/ ··· ther.htm
BS conspiracy theories don't belong here.

Aspartame generally:
»www.snopes.com/medical/t ··· tame.asp

Aspartame as ant poison:
»www.snopes.com/humor/ift ··· ison.asp

CatSnak
Live to Ride
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join:2001-05-06
Ashland, OR

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Those sound like sugar ants as we call them and the best way to deal with those is toro. Just a single drop on a small piece of cardboard near the ant trail and in a few days they're gone.

ptrowski
Got Helix?
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Woodstock, CT

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said by CKizer:

Best stuff ever...
I think the OP is trying to be rid of ants, not demons.