What's the best way to remove ANTS from my house. (inside and out)

[Pakaderm]

My wife and I just bought a new house two weeks ago. There are thousands of ants all over the property, mostly outside walking around the foundation/walls/fence. There is now a small stream of ants inside the house. I've tried those Combat poison traps for the inside ants, but they seem to ignore them. I'd like to spray/sprinkle poison around the outside of the house, but what's the best thing to use? Also, I need to kill off all the ants on the inside to. Do any brands of poison traps work, or should I get a poison spray that kills on contact? I have a cat that lives 100% inside so I'm not worried about poison around the yard, unless is kills plants/grass.

-Pakaderm

 

[JEDI]

try flour. yes ordinary flour. the reason is that flour abosrbs water. ants will bring it back to their nest, then eat it, and die of thirst.

 

[Cerebus451]

What kind of ants? Carpenter ants won't go for normal ant bait traps. You need to call in the pros for them. For regular ants, just remove their food source. Find where they are going and clean up what they are trying to get at. You mentioned a cat, and I know the ants will go after cat food. Clear the ants out of the cat food and relocate the dish (if they are streaming, that means they are following a scent trail to their food - move the food and the scent trail no longer leads to food). You should be able to follow the trails and find out what they are getting at. Inside I don't use the traps, I just stomp the ants that I see (for some reason my cats no longer like to play with them) and make sure I keep my kitchen clean. Outside I've used a variety of traps, but I think ultimately the easiest way is to dump boiling water onto the ant hill itself.

 

[dakata24]

at least for the outside of the house, goto your home improvement store or even walmart/kmart/target and buy some ortho bug spray (comes in like 1 gal) and spray around the perimeter of the house (per the instructions). at least for the ortho that we use, it lasts for 6 months to keep ants plus a whole bunch of other bugs away..

 

[Pakaderm]

The previous owners left us some granulated poison which you're supposed to scatter in a 2' section around the house. What makes a better barrier for ants, the sprays or the granuals?

Boiling water? Never thought of that. I can try that tonight. What does boiling water do to the roots of trees/plants? I guess it won't stay hot for too long in the soil. Just enought to cook all the ants.

-Pak

 

[dakata24]

never tried the granules before. im not quite sure if rain diminishes the spray over time. but ive used the spray and has kept ants out of my house.. 1gal ortho is around $6-8. if u do get a spray, make sure it's lasts for 6 months. i recall seeing some other brands that only last 3 months.

 

[StageLeft]

I've used the drops spread along the ants paths in the past. I find they are extremely effective. Wait a couple days and no more ants.

 

[Amused]

Turn your house into an EPA superfund site. Everything will die, and the poison will never go away... they'll spend the rest of our lives talking about it, and spending moeny on studies.

 

[Ornery]

Don't know about CA, but I've heard down south it's the norm to have a contract with an exterminator. Your lawn can be treated with an extra chemical for grubs, so I suppose they could throw some kind of ant poison in there too.

We use Diazinon spray around here (in Ohio) if they get bad outside, but I haven't needed it in years. I put Sevin Dust on the door sills between the screen door and the main door. It's pretty safe, so you can sprinkle that EVERYWHERE! Takes care of spiders, ants and everything in between.

Make sure there is no leaking plumbing in the crawl space or wherever. Make sure there's no water leaking through the roof. Ants need water and set up house where there is a steady supply of moisture.