SOS
Well, great.
Thanks to Angie, this blog has been added to the sidebars of a bunch of Christian blogs. Now I feel pressured to quote some scripture or write something profound here, like,
I heard the voice of God this morning as the birds sang in the trees…
I’m so sorry, ladies, but the only thing I’m hearing this morning is one long silent scream in my head. Because I’ve got a very big problem.
ANTS.
ANTS!!!!
They’re baaaaa–aaaack.
If you are one of my original five readers, you already know I’m no stranger to ants. A few years ago, ants took over my stove while we were on summer vacation. It was the first serious ant infestation I had ever dealt with, and after about two weeks of trying everything I knew to get rid of them (short of an exterminator because I’ve got a small children/adult-onset asthma combo going on here), I finally found a foolproof, safe way to total ant elimination.
Don’t worry. This isn’t a paid post.
Seriously, the MaxAttrax 24 hour Ant Bait traps totally got rid of my ant problem- and I tried everything Kroger offered. It actually took about 48 hours, but still. VICTORY.
Ever since then, I’ve always kept these ant traps on hand. When ants pop up in the spring, I immediately put one of these babies down and boom! No more ants.
Until now.
Several weeks ago, I began seeing ants here and there… but I couldn’t figure out where they were coming from and I didn’t know where to put my traps. So I did what any thinking woman would do in this situation. I ignored them.
Big mistake.
Last week, we had heavy rains for about four days in a row. And suddenly, ANTS WERE EVERYWHERE. I had an infestation in my guest bathroom sink, my laundry closet, and in the pantry. Ewww. I responded by putting all of our food on the dining room table and by buying like, a dozen traps and putting them everywhere I saw ants. After all, my parents were coming (from their pristine residence which I privately call, “The Museum”), and the last thing I wanted them to see was ants.
Except that for some reason, the ant traps aren’t working. These ants just laugh at them. (Seriously. You can practically see them shaking with laughter.) Therefore, my parents were treated to the worst ant infestation I’ve ever seen here in my life. They handled it gracefully (“Honey, don’t worry, I had to kill an ant in my kitchen once,” my mother said with a kind grin), but oh. The embarrassment. The shame. ANTS. I might as well have just put a sign on the door that said, Your worst fears are true. I am a domestic failure. Enter at your own risk.
As of today, my parents have fled the premises. My dad claimed he had “work,” but in reality he and my mom were scared off, I’m pretty sure, by the ants, who seem to have taken up permanent residence. And now I don’t know what to do, other than lose my mind.
Seriously. I have found myself coming up with conspiracy theories about these ants. They have developed an insidious immunity to my ant traps. Or they have communicated to the entire colony that the ant traps are to be avoided. Or they have established some sort of Super Colony underneath my house than cannot be exterminated without tearing this whole structure down.
Also? They seem to be growing. I would swear that these ants are at LEAST one tenth of one millimeter longer than they were before.
Or maybe that’s just the crazy talking.
I find myself in a position now where there’s only one thing I can do to save my family and myself: turn to you.
Come on, Internets. Earn your keep and tell me how to get rid of these motherf erm, coverplucking ants.
Our future together depends upon it.
>haha… yeah, you’ve been added to my blogroll, too.OK! It’s time to look at an exterminator. It’s a great excuse to spend a day or two at a hotel, and it will be totally worth the expense!
>Orkin.
>Hi! I haven’t used it myself but have heard great things about Terro products. http://www.terro.com/Outside of that I think it is time to call the exterminator! Good luck!
>Well, I am not sure about immediate success but I can tell you that getting some borax powder and putting it around window seals and thresholds will help as will growing Mint, Lavender and Pennyroyal around the outside of your house.For immediate death of ants, I once bought some of that Citrus Air freshener that has real Citrus oils in it and hosed them and their little areas with it. It will kill them pretty fast.Hope that helps.-Pottymouth(Twitter)
>here is a website I found that has some answers (even though some are rudamentary). http://www.wikihow.com/Kill-Ants-Without-Pesticides
>http://www.biconet.com/crawlers/terroant.htmlOur home is on sandy land near Lake Michigan, where we battle with ants during spring rains too. I found this product during our first year here. This stuff works wonders. Good luck Lindsay
>A flamethrower.Barring that, one word: exterminators. Seriously, these people are professionals!My thing isn’t ants but spiders. Grass spiders. As in, everywhere I’d go in the house, one would appear not two seconds later. My husband didn’t believe me until one day, I sat down on the couch to watch TV. I had to get back up to grab the remote and, when I went to sit back down, a little spider was sitting RIGHT WHERE MY BUTT HAD BEEN PLANTED, grinning, I’m sure, and cackling to itself.The breaking point was when my husband squashed a fairly large spider and it exploded into eight million little baby spiders.Fortunately, they haven’t been around for a few months. But I’m waiting.
>I had an ant problem once – I tracked the little buggers to where they were entering the house and sprayed the chemical trail they follow with a vinegar/water solution. Then I went outside and sprinkled little mounds of cornmeal around. I think I also put some cornmeal inside too. Anyway, the cornmeal will kill the ants and the vinegar will remove their chemical trails. Haven’t had a problem since!
>Wow. The cornmeal solution explains why ants never TOUCH the shelf in the pantry with my baking powders/flour/CORNMEAL. Ha ha.I really do think this colony is under my house, so I don’t think I can get to their entrance point.
>I’ve got small children and bad asthma and I have pest control every 3 months. Just make sure they know of your issues and they can use a certain spray that won’t bother any of you. Tiffany
>Terro used to be the sh**…ooops, I mean the best. It actually had arsenic in it, but since so many wives used it to poison their husbands, it was pulled from the shelves and the formula was changed. Ha ha…should have put a warning label, “Not to be used for murder”Peace,Phil
>Here are a couple of links over to Rocks in my Dryer. I remembered her posting about a dread-inducing ant problem last year. Best of luck.http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/05/the-ants-go-mar.htmlhttp://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/05/theyre-coming-t.html
>Cornmeal works as stated previously. Also, wipe up the ant trail with a bleach wipe if you can. They come into our hom every year but if I get it soon enough I can usually shut it down… I’ve literally say with the vaccum and sucked them up as they’ve come through the gap at the bottom of the baseboard…I’d consider that exterminator at this point.
>I cant remember the name of it but is is a liquidy gel concoction you can buy. We always had this problem if it rained days in a row. I could just put a few drops out where I saw them. It attracted them and they would all huddle around this little pool of death! HEHE. I never put it anywhere Jake could get to it though. I have done the cornmeal and vinegar too and it does work.
>it’s time to call in a professional.
>I don’t have advice, I just had to post and say that I am shuddering over here… ants give me the heebie jeebies. 🙂
>Most interesting advice yet:Ant fight method 1. Collect a large number of ants from one ant hill (easy to do just leave some food in a container, return after 2 hours and you should have heaps. 2. Drop all the ants in the container onto another ant hill and the ants will start fighting each other resulting in many casualties. 3. Takes time but well worth it.I kind of want to try it, just as an insect experiment for the kids!
>So I hate to break it to you but I have this problem every year, only maybe worse because they somehow end up in my BED -OH LORD – where I get bitten on the you know what in the middle of the night. And when the exterminators come, you know what they do to kill ants? Put out ant traps. So . . .good luck! And where underwear to bed.
>We have an ant problem as well. We spray a solution around the edge of our house. No ants can penetrate. All spraying is done outside. We have yet to find a family member on the floor with his legs up so I think it is safe.
>I totally had a terrible ant problem in my dishwasher one time, when I actually lived on the second floor of an apartment building. They were coming in through a crack on the sliding glass door out to the deck. We had to have someone come and reseal the door. If you want a permenent solution then you need to find how they are getting into your house…
>Hire exterminator – go to the beach.
>We had this problem at our old house and my husband used home defense and it worked, other than that an exterminator might be needed:)
>”Breathe, breathe, thou merry mint; that I might see nary an ant.”Oops. That’s what happens when English majors contemplate pest control.In the short term, call an exterminator. If they know you have children and pets, they will be very careful. I had an ant problem handled by an exterminator and he sprayed mostly outside. Inside, he got on his hands and knees and daubed the pesticides in various strategic locations…well out of the reach of inquisitive toddlers and stoopid dawgs.In the long term, I second the planting mint, pennyroyal and lavender around the house. (Pennyroyal is poisonous, so be careful!). I also put pots of mint on the counter in the kitchen and on selected windowsills. Haven’t had an ant invasion since.Good luck!
>What kind of ants? I Texas we had sugar ants (teeny little red ones) and one day I ate a handful of cheeze its before seeing that the entire box was infested with the little suckers. I still feel queasy to this day when I see a cheeze it. Oh, advice? Sorry, I have none. Except Beware The Cheeze-it. Oh, wait, my husband reminded me that we set out bowls of sugar water and they would drown themselves in it.
>terrible! my condolences. at some point i want to try and write a story about a bird mite infestation that we fought off about three years ago. the thing about bugs in your house is you start to feel like they are crawling all over you, even when they are not! good luck!
>If you can’t get to the entry point (being under the homestead and all) just place a pile of cornmeal where you see them coming in and they will take the little bits back to the nest and DIE!!!! (Because for some reason ants cannot digest the cornmeal and they DIE!!!!) The vinegar/water keeps their compadres from exploring more of your house than just the nearest entry point. Good Luck! (And we tried exterminators -ehem two!- and the only thing that worked was the cornmeal.
>You posts have made me laugh for almost a year … but today is the first time your post has made me itch. Thaaaanks.Ants are awful. And the suckiest part is they are almost impossible to get rid of without the chemicals that only exterminators can buy. I guess you could go all black market and buy some online.. but um dude? Don’t you already DO enough? Call in the professionals, pack up the family and consider this a mini vacation/ adventure while they nuke the snot out of those buggers. Just breathe and think of the priceless material for your next articles? I feel like being a smart(ahem donkey) and finding a fitting Bible quote.Hang in and kill em alllll
>I don’t usually buy those “as seen on TV things, but I did invest in the Riddex plug in..thingy. And it works.I’ve had it since it came out and have yet to see any ants. I live in a basement apartment, so Ants were kind of a big thing, but no more. It IS available at Walgreens, for less than 20 bucks. You need one for each floor of your house that you want covered.
>Don’t change anything, no matter who’s side bar you’re on…love your posts!No solution, but if you call the exterminator…we had to do this one time with ants got in my closet in a house we were renting. My husband was afraid that by the time they got there…they would be gone…you know…go to the doctor after you feeling better kinda of thing. So he hid peanut butter in the closet to keep them there and make the landlord pay for the services, which he did!
>Nothing helpful here, but good luck!
>For your house: Professional helpFor your blog: More smiley blinkies
>Last summer I got ants in my pantry…BLEH, BLEH, BLEH. It really grossed me out, too. Bugs and I canNOT co-exist. They were the little tiny ants…can’t remember what they were called, but the ant traps did nothing. Searched on the internet…there’s something you can buy, but in the meantime I used the vinegar, and they didn’t come back! I never did buy that stuff.You know, I think I’ll clean the bottom of my pantry out today and spray again. I’m sure they’re plotting their reappearance here, as well.
>This is what I did when I had much more time than I have now. It was a vendetta by this point, because I had tried everything else. I stuck an ant trap (same brand you bought) in the middle of the floor. Then I put a puddle of mountain dew on the floor next to it. I watched where the ants were coming from, then put traps there too. And sprayed pest spary around every inch of my house. Then I started vaccuuming them up every time I saw them march over to the Mountain Dew. Eventually, I either killed them myself, or the traps did it. And they didn’t come back in, because of the spray.I could never do that now though, because it takes too much time and isn’t especially clean if you can’t sit around all day vaccuuming up ants. Which I can’t.
>one word – TERRO ANT KILLER- you can only get it at a hardware store, and sometimes lplaces like big lots. It works. One little bottle can last years, and once they are gone – they don’t come back. Over the years, we have had less and less of a problem in the spring using this stuff. Go get em girl!
>Move.
>Peanut butter and Borax. Just mix a little together and place in some tops from soda bottles around the infested area. Just keep it out of the reach of children (duh!)I’ve also heard the Terro was pretty effective.
>Poor thing! I have no advice except call the pest man to spray. Good luck and if all else fails get used to your new roomates! :o)
>I think you need to start using more exclamation points and saying “Bless her heart” more often. Just sayin’ :)I’m saying try out the Torro stuff. Works well, but it looks a bit like the Apocolypse is decending because the initial application causes MORE ants to come. But then? In a few days? They’re gone.Ants skeeve me out more than any bug. Either that or exterminate and take the kids to your parents for a bit.
>Find the ant nest outside your home and pour boiling water on it.It works!
>here’s a site I found, where you use what you have on hand, one solution is baby powder (you’ve got kids, you must have that around) http://www.thefrugallife.com/ants.html
>hahaha, “I heard the voice of God this morning as the birds sang in the trees…”Oh, My-lanta. Seriously funny.As for your Ant problem…one word..TERMINIX…on a regular basis.Okay, that was 5 words.
>My sister told me to use pine sol and put it on a sponge in the middle of their trail. Last year when I had a bad ant problem I just poured it on the ants in a corner in the floor of my kitchen and left it for awhile and later when I came back through the dead ants where gone! And I hadn’t cleaned it up yet. I don’t remember having them come back in my kitchen after that either. I would definitely recommend trying it after your kiddos go to bed and then you can clean it up before they wake up.
>I use Terro. Cut up some little cardboard squares (flat, like a cereal box, not corrugated). Then put a drop or two of Terro on the squares and put them in the traffic path of the ants. The stuff is super sticky, so best not to touch. And keep out of reach of the little ones. It works for me. Best wishes that it will work for you too!-Shelley
>CinnamonPut it where you see that ants coming from.Works for me.
>Husband is an exterminator. He used Borax on our ant problem. Put it in a squeeze bottle and squeeze it into the cracks of where they’re coming in. They carry it back to the queen and voila, no more ants. Second line of defense, they don’t like citrus cleaners. So clean the house with orange spray.
>One more vote for Terro. It’s great for the little ants that like to scour your kitchen counters.
>At least it wasn’t maggots.
>Greening The Cleaning products are eco-friendly and they should kill those suckers…try it. It’s a product put out by Deidre Imus. I have a mouse problem…cats are here but can’t keep up with the the critters. Good luck,Kerry
>Oh Lindsey!I’ve “heard” that if you call ants every expletive under-the-sun while spraying massive amounts of Windex (or any other spray liquid at hand), they will die. However, their 30,000 relatives will soon follow to pay their last respects.This is when one breaks out the big guns and puts a shout out to the owner of XY chromosome bearer of the household and demands him to “get rid of the problem”. Tada!I’ve “heard” this solves the problem. I wouldn’t know as I don’t keep the type of home that “welcomes” pests.In all honestly, have your hubby get a sprayer at your local hardware chain and have him get the “pie-zin” (said in my best Pirate voice), and have him spray the outside perimeter of the house. For the inside, keep squashing and hide traps.You are getting this answer from someone who gets totally freaked out by ants!Good luck!
>I have to add a vote for the borax mixes…but I prefer to use jelly and any kind of ant powder. Mixed with a basic fruit jelly (grape works wonders here), they can’t tell that it’s something that’s going to be poisonous so they, of course, carry it back into the hill and treat the queen with their finds. The house I grew up in had really bad ant problems every year…despite spraying outside, despite exterminators, and despite traps (the house was just that old and the bugs were just that stubborn). After hearing that tip, my mother set out the little cups of doom…largely in the back, far corners of cabinets out of reach or sight of anyone and in the back corners of counters (for instance, behind the toaster, which we put in the corner of the counter)…and VOILA! no more little black buggies.
>i used to wipe down my counters and windowsill above the sink with peppermint essential oil in a spray bottle. i lived in an old farmhouse and every spring we’d find ants around sinks/tubs/washing machines–i wonder if they like damp wood? anyway, i’d spray and wipe down those areas every time i was in the kitchen or bathroom etc. it took mere seconds to do. although they disappeared within a day, i’d continue to spray for a couple of weeks in order to make sure they were gone for good. worked every year, for years.–joe
>Hey I saw a commercial for some plug in thingy. It’s good because there are no chemicals involved.Riddex!
>Peppermint oil. It worked even on the most rabid of the ant species- the texas sugar ant. *shudder* Sounds simple, but dab it wherever you see the ants. They hate it. 🙂
>I hate ants and fear them and as much as I’d like spring to come, I’m scared the ants will come, too. I really hope you find a fix soon. At least it’s not yellow jackets… we were infested with them a couple years ago- in our house!- and that was NOT pretty. Had to dole out big $$ for that one.Steph
>We have a company in Portland that is called Eco-Care, they exterminate ants/bees, etc, for $200-300 and they are kid/pet/asthma safe. This is more of a concern all over lately, so I would not rule out calling in the professionals, see if you can find someone safe in your area and let them do the dirty work. This company also guaranteed to come back for free if the ants returned within the year! I’ll pay for that!
>I think you need to call the exterminator. There are some ants that release “pheremones” when you try to kill them – that calls in reinforcement ants. The exterminator puts a very thin layer of “glue” (think clear caulk) in crevices where the ants could be coming in and then the ants bring it back to the nest, they all eat it and they die. You don’t need to leave your house, I’ve had the glue treatment more than once and it’s fine for the kids because they won’t even get to it. It totally works!Good luck – I hate ants.
>Oh well on my blogroll as well. But about the ants? Hmmm, guys just use honey and a flyswatter, but then again we get them before they multiply!Go to your nearest hardware store (we have Lowe’s and Home Depot) and ask them what the landscaping and yard guys use. Get that.And keep the baby from crawling on the floors until you get the “all clear”.Blessings!Jonathan
>just be glad they aren’t cockroaches . . . not that i have problems with cockroaches or anything (that would mean i am not clean enough and my parents are coming this weekend and you thought YOUR parents were clean-freaks . . .)
>Oh honey, Tennessee ants are the worst – and I’ve lived in Florida.Terro Liquid Ant Bait.And Grant Ant Bait stakes for outside, wherever you’ve seen them on the house.I had ants in the kitchen every spring and fall without fail until I used those two together, although I really think it was the Terro that did it and apparently killed the colony completely. It drove me nuts to let them swarm around the poison but it did work.
>oh lindsay… please don’t start quoting scripture! your blog is hilarious, please, I am begging….don’t change it !?!?!
>Our house was the same way for years, in late spring and again when the winter rains started. We had them everywhere, even crawling on us while we slept. I am a neat freak and never have crumbs anywhere (no kids), so don’t feel bad, like you aren’t clean or something. To conquer them, first I went to all the major infestations in the house (kitchen and bathrooms) and vacuumed them up. I then put all food items that were not in the fridge into Ziploc bags. Then I re-caulked ALL the base boards. I found so many tiny, tiny holes where they could get in. Next I went outside and sprayed the entire perimeter of the house, ground to 12 inches up, with a poison that I bought from Home Depot. I had a few stragglers for a few days and when I saw them I killed them on the spot. So far we have been ant free since. This took a lot of trial and error, and there were a few years where I just co-existed with them because it seems hopeless. You are outnumbered, but don’t have to be outwitted.
>Sounds like rove ants, AKA Little Black Ants. I’ve had these before and my trusted traps wouldn’t work either, after trying everything I finally called the exterminator and they were finally able to get rid of them. Problem is this type of ant won’t go to the trap. They are very, very difficult to get rid of, especially if you have an established colony, even for the pros. Good luck.
>If ants mean domestic failure, what does a rat in my garage mean?!! AUGH!I say take a vacation and send in the exterminator while you relax for about a week and then go home to no more ants and no more pesticides for the little ones.
>Let there be no misunderstanding h’yar: you are at war, and your insidious enemy outnumbers you and is inherently EVIL.If your 48 hour ant traps are no longer effective, it suggests that the scientists of the evil ant community have researched and come up with an effective counteragent to the workings of the ant traps.Action/reaction. Time to up the ANTe (no…well, okay…some pun intended).Because you live in Suburbia (and don’t wish to establish REAL turmoil amongst your neighbors or in your own back/front yard), acquiring the BugaBOOM by Bonco is NOT an option (besides, ants operate below the “kill whatever moves” radar of the BugaBOOM). Napalm is effective, but rather uncompromising. An ant laser would give you an edge…and a lot of burnt spots.Regretfully, I have to agree with a few other posters h’yar: it’s time you go with the NUCLEAR OPTION. EXTERMINATOR.
>Terro Ant Baits! Every year I have them coming in from under my dishwasher! I literally watch for them to come out, scoop them up in papertowel and then put them in a zip loc bag. It’s next to impossible to squish them — they just don’t want to die! I put the baits under the dishwasher and for a couple days still see them around, but then voila, they are gone! Good luck — I’m waiting for my “company” to arrive!
>I know others have said it, so it’s not a new idea, but TERRO works wonderfully! I’ve only used the liquid kind. they eat it and spread it around their nest and they all DIE!! muahahahahahaha!……..sorry got a little carried away. or something that contains borax powder.
>I don’t have ants right now. I have been overrun with lady bugs!! I don’t know how to get rid of them either.
>One important thing to know about ants is that there are sweet-eating ants and grease-eating ants.The Terro works great on the sweet-eating ants–and it’s so fun to watch them drink/eat it, because they totally gorge themselves on it and get so fat they can hardly walk back to their nest.For the grease-eating ants, I use the Borax in peanut butter, plus sprinkle Borax along the baseboards. It really does work great. I wouldn’t recommend the exterminator until you try this, because it’s a heckuva lot cheaper, and doesn’t take too long. For quick results, I’ve used an ant spray, Raid maybe? I spray it and then wipe it around so there isn’t a lot to let dry.And I’m totally going to try the peppermint oil cleaning trick that was suggested…keep ants away and have a wonderful smelling kitchen…that’s fabulous!
>Terro! But not the little traps, buy the small container and use the drops. It lasts forever. When we moved into our house 9 years ago we had a terrible infestation, I used Terro and they were gone for two years! Now I have to use it every two years when they return… I just bought my second bottle.
>Grant’s Ant Stakes. Warning: still contains arsenic. But 100% natural organic arsenic, so no worries there. (I’m actually serious, it’s not a chlorinated hydrocarbon or organophosophate so it’s not as scary as some of the pesticides out there)
>Hey there! I’m in Nashville (East Nashville to be specific) and I’ve had the an invasion as well. I’m gonna side with the Terro products. My husband did all the research and declared all out warfare on our biggest, baddest invasion one Sunday morning. Terro works on our brand of ants. Good luck to you!
>I’m laughing hysterically at the ant story, and remembering the college apartment with the maggot issue. More specifically, the college apartment garbage can with the maggot issue.Also, I found you through Angie’s twitter, and when I read your recent post about your faith, I just wanted to give you a big hug. One Jesus follower to another. 🙂
>My husband and his college roomate had HUGE ant problems in their apartment (could have been the food lying all over, and- btw did you know ants like beer?) and his roomate didn’t want to use chemicals. They sliced up cucumbers and put chili powder in the windowsills and doorways. I mocked (cucumbers!) but it worked. He even put a little ant on the cuke and it jumped off! It’s at least a non-chem alternative if you’re waiting for stuff to kick in…
>I was going to say cucumbers but Amy Z beat me to it. It really works,
>Lindsay — you can’t go wrong with a pest professional. My firm works with the National Pest Management Association – check their web site, pestworld.org, for good info and a zip code locator for qualified pest professionals. You may want to ask the company you call about an integrated pest management program (IPM) – check whatisipm.org for more.
>definitely Terro. Works very well.
>I’m glad to see this post and its comments. We have a bad ant problem this year, too. My mother always used Terro and it worked great, but a few years ago when I needed some it was very difficult to find so I had assumed it was banned and hadn’t even looked for any. Now I know to just look harder for it and plan to tomorrow!
>I swear by Terro ant killer. It really works. Good luck!
>I don’t have time between contractions to read through the comments (I’m trying to catch up on my blogs before the baby comes!;)). But did you know that raw grits kill ants? It’s a great solution because you can dump them anywhere w/o worrying about your kiddos. The ants will eat them and then the grits will expand….gross, but effective.Let me know if you try it. We used to get rid of our fire ants that way every summer in TX!