We've been having a little problem with ants lately. It's hard to understand why because Monica keeps our house so clean. I've had tenants who wonder why they constantly have roaches and they insist they keep their home clean. They usually have week old mac & cheese on the table and half eaten gummy worms on the floor. I guess their clean is different than our clean. I guess what I'm saying is our house is clean, not "clean" like our tenants say, but really actually clean. I guess we'd have a roach problem too if our house was really dirty.
They've mostly been by our back door in a couple spots. When it rained a week or so ago they were all over the back door. Thousands of them. It was crazy. I sprayed some poison and thought we took care of them. Or so we thought.
This morning I saw some ants on the counter where I've never seen them. We started looking around and they were everywhere. They were in the cabinets above and below. We took out all the food in the bottom cabinets (see picture) and couldn't find an obvious source of food for them. There was a bottle of Zrii that had leaked during shipping, but there were only a couple ants on them. Then there was a bottle of freshly canned pears from Monica's grandparents that they were all over. There must have been some syrup residue left on the bottle because it was still sealed. Other than those two things it really wasn't obvious why they were there.
I made a trap out of cardboard and honey. I picked it up after a few hours and they were swarming. I thought they were all stuck in the honey or else I would have had the plastic bag right when I picked it up. The picture below is a fresh trap. Hopefully we'll get them all without having to spray poison all inside our food storage cabinets.
Luckily these are really small black ants and they haven't bitten.
Maybe we'll have an ant roast and invite you all over.
If any of you have natural ant killers let us know.
They've mostly been by our back door in a couple spots. When it rained a week or so ago they were all over the back door. Thousands of them. It was crazy. I sprayed some poison and thought we took care of them. Or so we thought.
This morning I saw some ants on the counter where I've never seen them. We started looking around and they were everywhere. They were in the cabinets above and below. We took out all the food in the bottom cabinets (see picture) and couldn't find an obvious source of food for them. There was a bottle of Zrii that had leaked during shipping, but there were only a couple ants on them. Then there was a bottle of freshly canned pears from Monica's grandparents that they were all over. There must have been some syrup residue left on the bottle because it was still sealed. Other than those two things it really wasn't obvious why they were there.
I made a trap out of cardboard and honey. I picked it up after a few hours and they were swarming. I thought they were all stuck in the honey or else I would have had the plastic bag right when I picked it up. The picture below is a fresh trap. Hopefully we'll get them all without having to spray poison all inside our food storage cabinets.
Luckily these are really small black ants and they haven't bitten.
Maybe we'll have an ant roast and invite you all over.
If any of you have natural ant killers let us know.
(Food from cabinets)
Honey ant trap (yummy!)
7 comments:
Just so you all know I am totally grossed out and stressed out. I can not function when things are messy or cluttered, so having everything all over the counters and ants everywhere else is driving me nuts. Please don't think we are slobs.
~Monica
I was just thinking what slobs you guys are.......j/k
We had an ant problem a couple of months ago. Our culprit was a half eaten banana. I have a powder that I put in the corners of my cabinets. I tried to get rid of all of the visible ants and the powder has worked so far. It was just some powder from Walmart. I can look and see if I still have some and you guys could use it. Hope this helps. Good luck. What a pain!!
hey we just finally got rid of our roach problem the people who lived in our place before we moved in had pets and brought in the roaches well when we moved in our landlord forgot to tell us that there were roaches so it has taken 4 weeks of spraying and bombing and flooding to finally see them gone Wahoo! but good luck it bites
LOL! I'm sure your definition of "clean" is different than ours. (I'm sure some of you reading this would be thinking that is an understatement ;))
Anyway...I personally think that cleanliness has nothing to do with it. We've had ants too. And sometimes when these ants have been on our counter, we've also left out some jam or some other sugary item. The ants didn't even care about the jam. They were no where near it. They were just wandering around aimlessly. I decided that they aren't very smart... And then one day the ants are gone...not a trace. It's not like we've greatly changed our cleaning habits. I don't know what those little creatures are thinking.
I have tried spraying bleach cleaner where I thought that the ants where getting in, I don't know if that did anything.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't worry Monica, we know you are not a slob. This isn't your fault. If people thought that you where a slob, there would be absolutely no hope for the rest of us! ;)
Don't worry. When we had the bug guy come he was telling us about all the different kinds of bugs to watch for and he said that ants come whether your house is dirty or spotless. He told us he has customers who have million dollar homes and cleaning ladies and still have ants. I don't think it has anything to do with how clean or dirty you are. Here are some things I have heard that work.
Make sure all the food in your house is sealed, so that the ants can't get to it. Be relentless about this for 3-7 days. The ants, having nothing to eat, will go elsewhere. This works because the ants are following the chemical trails left by other ants, who did find food.
Use chalk to keep ants away from kitchen areas. You will be amazed to see how they move away from any chalk lines. Not sure why this one works but they say it does.
You can also use corn meal. This method is especially great around pets or children, as corn meal by itself is not poisonous. The ants will carry it home and try to eat it, but they can't digest it properly. Be sure to put corn meal wherever you see that the ants like to frequent.
Use boric acid, a natural derivative of the mineral "boron", used in borax, and also in saline solution. It is about as harmful to humans as table salt.
Buy it at the local drug store (about $2 a bottle).
Pour about a tablespoon of real maple syrup (or anything you know ants love) on a flat plate or saucer.
Sprinkle the boric acid around the syrup so that the ants must walk through it to get to the syrup, you may even use a q-tip to ensure a good distribution of the powder around the the syrup.
Put the concoction somewhere you know there will be ants and just leave it.
Boric acid disolves their skeleton. This works on all insects with external skeletal systems. This is why they need only pass through it and not eat it.
Put out Cream of Wheat (farina). Don't cook it first. The ants eat it, it expands, boom!
Good luck!
We had aweful ant problems in our house when we first moved in (along with everyone in this neighborhood, I hear), and we finally found something that worked- I don't know if it's safe to use inside, but we sprayed around the yard, the house and in the garage and bathroom, and we haven't seen one since. It's a concentrated formula that you mix with water, it's "Hot Shot pest control concentrate". It says it's supposed to work for up to 9 months, and we're going on about 8 and we haven't seen any, so it's worked! I hope whatever you try you can get rid of them, they're sooo annoying!!!
The quickest way to get rid of them are ant traps. The ones where they climb inside for a day and carry the poison back to their nests with them. Just spread those around your house and they'll be gone within a week.
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