Arrgghh!

[senoritafish]

Damned Ants are invading again!

Normally I like ants - even have had ant farms on occasion - but OUTSIDE and not INSIDE.

Comments

[metalmensch.livejournal.com]

Ant traps. Use them. They will take the little bit of acid in the traps back and feed it to their queen. It's the most effective way to kill ants. What type are they btw?

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

These are the small black ants, mostly harmless, but I don't know exactly what they're called. They don't bite or anything, but it's just annoying to lean against the kitchen couner first thing in the morning and then find you have ants all over your bathrobe. We have dark counters so you can't always see them first.

I've tried usng ant bait, but most of them are based on sugar, and these ants seem to be attracted to grease. Miss a small spot when you wipe off the counter, and it will be covered with them the next day and then they don't go away. I'm a little reluctant to set out baits when I have a rug bug crawling around, too. Simple Green kills them quickly enough, and it's non-toxic. I hate doing that though - I'd just like them to stay outside.

John invested in one of those Pest Offense thingies, that you plug into a socket and it's supposed use the wiring in your house to repel ants, roaches, mice, brothers-in-law, you name it. They seem to be ignoring it. At least they're not climbing into the freezer and committing suicide, like they did a couple of years ago. That was gross - you'd open the freezer and there would be a pile of frozen ants an inch high. They made our ice cube dispenser unusable. Blech.

Re:

[metalmensch.livejournal.com]

If you take the bait apart and put a spot of grease in the center of the bait station and put it together again, you shouldn't have a problem. :) As for the bait stations themselves, the ones that I know of are pretty much totally non-toxic. They're also designed so that little rug-rats can't get into them. Look for a bait with an acid as the active ingredient. You could eat the acid if you really wanted to, it's that safe.

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

It's usually boric acid, I think. I'll give it a try.

Hmm, I need moth traps too. I might well just live in the backyard.