Help me with my ant problem!

[Deleted]

There's a brand called Terro that makes a liquid that you drop on little pieces of cardboard and hide around the kitchen. It's the only thing that works for the ants at my house.

[Brie]

What worked for us was wiping everything down with a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water. Our kitchen smelled like a salad for awhile, but it worked like a charm.

[evans]

The only thing that worked for us was spraying the perimeter of the house to keep them from getting in. We have to do it twice a year but it's a huge help.

[oregonpachey]

Get the Terro traps or drops stat. You will notice an increase in ants for a couple of days (it's gross but don't kill them!) but then they will disappear.

[georgeharrison]

May 18, 2012 9:42:33 GMT -5 evans said:

The only thing that worked for us was spraying the perimeter of the house to keep them from getting in. We have to do it twice a year but it's a huge help.

We have to do this every year early spring. It keeps them out for 12 months.

[CloudBee]

Orange oil or extract, and cinnamon. Ants don't like to cross over cinnamon.

[dr.girlfriend]

We used to get these around our sink, which is right under our window. I went outside to look, and I don't know why but there was a little tiny slit in the window frame. It looked deliberate, maybe something needed for the assembly? I didn't really think the ants could be getting in there because it was so tiny, but they seemed to be congregating in that area. I put caulk in the slit and no ants since. It was like a miracle! I also cleaned off all the debris from the kitchen windowsill at the same time, don't know if that helped also.

[pugz]

Terro is where it is out. Get the little houses for outside the perimeter of the house and the liquid traps for inside.

[jinnifah]

Ugh, ants. We had a nasty infestation at our old apartment that the landlords wouldn't deal with. The main thing was to clean absolutely every dish the moment it was soiled - nothing could be left in the sink. Keep the counters wiped down (vinegar is a great option like pp said).
If the kitchen was immaculate for 2 consecutive days, we saw a pretty drastic decrease in their presence. All the ant traps in the world didn't seem to do anything.

At our house we do get some red ants come indoors but it's nothing like the problem mentioned above.

Dh sprays an insecticide for ants down in our basement in the spring which takes care of most of them for the summer.

One thing that keeps them out (and which is pet/child friendly) is cinnamon. If you sprinkle it down in the doorways, windowsills, or other entry points you've found, they don't like to walk across it. So only the bravest come indoors.

Our cats also like eating them so that helps too

[dr.girlfriend]

May 18, 2012 11:38:53 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

May 18, 2012 11:23:26 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

We used to get these around our sink, which is right under our window. I went outside to look, and I don't know why but there was a little tiny slit in the window frame. It looked deliberate, maybe something needed for the assembly? I didn't really think the ants could be getting in there because it was so tiny, but they seemed to be congregating in that area. I put caulk in the slit and no ants since. It was like a miracle! I also cleaned off all the debris from the kitchen windowsill at the same time, don't know if that helped also.

This is exactly our set up, so I'll have to check outside and see if it would be such a simple fix!

If I have time when I get home I'll post a pic. It was really such a tiny, randomly placed slit.

[dexteroni]

May 18, 2012 11:23:26 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

I put caulk in the slit

I'm embarrassed at how much this made me giggle.

[kasi]

May 18, 2012 15:37:47 GMT -5 dexteroni said:

May 18, 2012 11:23:26 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

I put caulk in the slit

I'm embarrassed at how much this made me giggle.

Total "That's what she said" moment.

[theintended]

May 18, 2012 15:26:55 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

If I have time when I get home I'll post a pic. It was really such a tiny, randomly placed slit.

Is it at the edge of the sill? Could it be for water drainage?

[dr.girlfriend]

Sorry, the picture is sideways and I can't figure out how to rotate it...but what looks like a little square in the dead center of the photo has a little slit at the top of it.

[dr.girlfriend]

May 18, 2012 15:45:06 GMT -5 kasi said:

May 18, 2012 15:37:47 GMT -5 dexteroni said:

I'm embarrassed at how much this made me giggle.

Total "That's what she said" moment.

Oh, trust me, it's nothing but giggles at my house whenever we whip the caulk out.

[megs193]

If you see where they are coming in from you can put a pile of pepper there. We had an ant problem last year and my mom told me to do this. I thought she was crazy but did it anyway and then left the house to get raid to spray outside. I came back and all the ants were gone.

[dutchgirl678]

We found out our house had lots of ants AFTER we moved in. In fact, the owners knew about it bc about a month after we moved in we saw the Terminix guy spraying the perimeter of our house for ants. They had prepaid him and we took over after that. However, the ants kept coming back. So we stopped the service (it was $100 a month!). Then we put down Terro traps by the kitchen. Worked for a short while.

The best thing for us was to get Ortho Max Defense spray. We still get ants in the spring but they disappear as soon as we spray and don't come back until the next spring. We just spray inside on all the baseboards and every little nook and cranny once we start seeing them appear.

[agnes]

May 18, 2012 11:26:09 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

I third the liquid Terro stuff.

These did not work for us. The ants just kept coming after eating the stuff dry.

The only thing that helped us was making sure everything was in air tight canisters or in the fridge. And everything wiped down constantly.

Even then, we still saw ants. But if there was any tiny morsel of food that was not cleaned up was swarming with ants.

Basically the only that worked for us was moving. lol

[McGavin]

May 18, 2012 9:42:21 GMT -5 Brie said:

What worked for us was wiping everything down with a 50-50 mix of vinegar and water. Our kitchen smelled like a salad for awhile, but it worked like a charm.

This is what we did too and it worked. :Y: