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every spring we have ants in our kitchen and bathroom the real small ants we have tried sprays, powders, traps, nothing works, i even tried homemade remedies like cucumber peels, baby powder, walnuts,, nothing keeps them away..they are driving me crazy but they don't seem to bother my husband he says he get tired of me fighting with the ants.. we leave nothing sweet or any kind of food out cause that will draw them in.. my house is spotless and i don't know why they come in..

2007-04-06 08:51:13 · 7 answers · asked by raven1 3 in Home & Garden Other - Home & Garden

7 answers

This remedy WILL work and it is a cheap one! Buy some 20 Mule Team borax laundry soap and a cheap ketchup squirt bottle, you can usually find them at the dollar stores. Trim a little off of the tip of the ketchup bottle add the powdered laundry soap, apply along baseboards around base of kitchen cabinets and vanities and around the areas where the plumbing comes into the cabinets and the vanity. Leave the soap lay for several days so the ants have a chance to carry it back to their nest, it will kill them, when you no longer see any signs of the ants just vacuum up the excess laundry soap and use the rest of the box to do laundry with. I used this remedy last year for the first time and it really works well.

2007-04-06 09:01:05 · answer #1 · answered by judy_derr38565 6 · 1 0

I know how flustered you must feel. As with anything that lives there must be a food source and water to hold their interest. If you are sure there is nothing of interest to the ants and you have check for the smallest leakage of water then perhaps it is time to put up a barrier around the home from the outside. I had a similar problem and believe it or not they were so small that they could walk around the top of the screw on top of our peanut butter jar on the inside of the jar. I had hunted and cleaned for weeks to try to figure out what they were eating. Anyway good luck and perhaps you need an expert if you can't find what it is that they are eating or drinking.

2007-04-06 09:01:37 · answer #2 · answered by oldone 4 · 1 0

My neighbor spent $600 hiring an insecticide company to come into his home and spray for ants... 2 weeks later the ants were back.

I sprayed the parameter of my house with malathion once a month and also covered the parameter of his house on about three gallons worth of mix.

One little bottle, bought at Home Depot, Menards, etc., can last for years.

Each mixture takes one Tablespoon Malathion and one gallon of water. The sprayer (about $20.00) and $8-9.00 for the insecticide was a far bit cheaper then the $600 he ended up wasting.

That was in 1999, I still have the same little jug and use it each year about three to four times over the course of the summer.

2007-04-06 10:39:41 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

Other suggestions are good, including the insecticidal barrier around the house. A bait called Terro works similar to the suggestion using borax. Workers take it back to the colony, killing many, sometimes even the queen.

But, are you positive there is no water getting behind the exterior of your house, for example from a deteriorating window sill or moulding? You don't mention what the siding of your house is. Is it in good condition? If not, water will get in and ants will follow.

2007-04-06 09:29:08 · answer #4 · answered by greydoc6 7 · 1 0

I had the same problem in my last apartment. I had to get some small pesticide pellets from the hardware store. Rake them into the ground from the house to 1 foot away around the entire house! Then I sprayed around all the doors and on the driveway once a month during the summer. Hope this helps.

2007-04-06 09:04:25 · answer #5 · answered by Miss S 2 · 1 0

First of all - you must determine what type of ant it is. When you mentioned Kitchen & Bathroom -- Little bells went off in my head.

Several years ago, I took over management of an apartment community where several residents had complaints similar to yours. After several months of trying different options, it was discovered that we had "pharoah ants". These ants are highly attracted to water sources. I even had a resident complaining about finding them in her showerhead.

Then number one thing I learned about these ants is DO NOT USE PESTICIDE SPRAYS TO TREAT THESE ANTS! When foraging worker ants do not return to the nest - the colony creates a new queen and splits to create another colony. Eventually they'll take over everything. Here is a link to the Terminix pest library that talks about them.

http://www.terminix.com/information/pestlibrary/?fuseaction=search&searchThis=pharoah

If you believe these aren't pharoah ants, you can also use this same pest library to determine what type you have.

Good Luck!

2007-04-06 10:36:52 · answer #6 · answered by just_Fia 2 · 1 0

BORIC ACID IN POWDER FORM...YOU GET IT AT WALMART, VERY EFFECTIVE AND HARMLESS TO YOU

2007-04-06 10:44:30 · answer #7 · answered by whateverbabe 6 · 1 0

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