I HATE ants...give me spiders, flies, whatever, but I literally gag over ants.

It relates back to my first week in the dorms at college -- I was on the ground floor and had left the window cracked. I must have left out something tasty, because next thing I know there's swath of ants, 4-5 inches wide,continuous and thick, for several feet, making their way into my room. YYYUUUUCK!

Good to know about both Big Lots and Bissels formulas.

Just one more reason to LOVE WV- NO fire ants!!!!! Or those other tiny ones that come into GA kitchens. I can walk outside barefoot and only worry abotu the neighborhood dogs that pooped in the yard.

It must be a West Coast thing. I don't remember ant attacks like this in the Midwest or the East Coast.
Clare

Reminds me af an ant attack we had back about 30 years ago.
A friend had sent over some powdered sugar covered pastries she had made. We were going out to my DBILs to celebrate Christmas Day and I left the pastries on the kitchen counter. Well, when we returned home the counter was covered with ants! Sheesh! We could not figure out why that happened. Never did it again in the 5 years we lived there. By the way, this was December in Michigan!!!!
Kathy G in MI

We just had a terrible ant problem...The big ones that don't do anything but annoy....I had a spray, but Dh got a different spray that you use around the outside of the house...Not sure of the name, but it did have "defense" in the label....It has done the job.....

UGH ! I hate ants. YUCK !

We have ants here that are half reddish orange and half brownish/black.

Not the small size sidewalk ants. Ants the size of carpenter ants.

They seem to eat anything that has died, worms, geckos, birds smaller ants's eggs....

They came into the upstairs last year. EWWWW.

They are everywhere. They drive me nuts.....

The following 'recipe' that I found on the Web worked for me 2 weeks ago on some small ants entering our kitchen. There are many different types of ants so cannot say they will work on the type you have.

Mix together the following:

1/8 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1.5 Teaspoons boric acid

"There are several secrets to success for using this potion:

Ratio  The proportion of boric acid to sugar water is important. If you make the mixture too weak, it won't kill anything; if you make it too strong, it will kill the foragers before they can get back to the queen and deliver the poisoned food to her. We've found the following mixture to be about right: 1 cup water, 2 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons boric acid. You can make a smaller amountÂyou won't need muchÂjust keep the proportions the same. Note: "MY" recipe is a scaled down amount from what is given in this paragrap; and I kept the proportion the same.
Placement  Put little drops or dribbled lines of the mixture on the counter or floorÂwherever you've seen the ants. You need to make sure they'll find it. IMPORTANT: While boric acid is far less toxic than most commercial chemical pesticides, you still do not want kids or pets ingesting this sugary but tainted mixture. Take precautions so that this does not happen.

Courage  You MUST resist the temptation to wipe up the ants that are feeding on the sugar-boric acid mixture. Remember, you're using the foragers as a payload delivery system to get your weapon to the source of the problem, the queen. Letting the foragers get their fill means you will have to endure something of a horror showÂteeming masses of black ants on your counter, table, or floor. Yeech! It will take 24-48 hours for the freak show to run its course, so just be patient. By the end of 3 days, your problem with the little ants should be all cleared up."

For me, I found the most ants on a windowsill so I dipped a Q-tip into the mixture and placed one on the window sill and a second on the top of my backsplash. I ignored the advice about killing those few on my counter. I wiped them up and cleaned the entire countertop thoroughly.

thunderboltlee - thanks I will give it a try. Don't want any more surprises this summer.
Clare

Yes I do, yesterday I was working in the garden and a fire ant got in my shoe and bit me on the ankle. Stung so bad.
I took a benadryl last night because it was itching so much and that just messed with my head- I slept so hard I dreamed weird dreams........ughh

Today it is all blistered up. I will pop it and then put alcohol on it -That works for me.

If you plant mint around your house the ants will stay away, they don't like it.

Last summer I found ants had inveded my kitchen and were all over my pets food and water bowls. A good spray with Raid around the nearby door frame ended that.

I had ant invasions in CA but so far, after almost 3 years in Iowa, no ants. We had ants so bad in one house we lived in that we had to have exterminators come out four times a year and spray the garage and the outside of the house.

I had the little tiny ants at the beginning of May. They were in the corner where the pet food dishes wre and in one spot in the living room. I couldn't see them at first because the pet dishes are on fabric place mats and they blended in. I saw Lucy staring intently at something then saw the ants.

Because I have animals I use baby powder to get rid of them and it really works! I put baby powder all along the baseboards and under the pet food dishes and under the fridge and in the living room on the hardwood along the baseboards. Got rid of them immediately and I haven't seen another one since.

I had them last year for the first time after they took the wall down in my kitchen and then again this year. I used the baby powder last year too because ant traps were no match for them.

Anne

Up here in British Columbia where I live it can be very hot and dry - we live quite close to a river and fight a continuous battle with feral ants - very tiny reddish fellas that are attracted to water.
What we use is a spray bottle with about an inch of dish soap in it, fill rest of the way with water, do not shake or mix.
When the little buggers start showing up again we spray the area with the dishsoap/water mix and that keeps them at bay for a few days, sometimes weeks.
I like the dish soap because it's harmless to humans and pets.
Suzan J

I'll have to try the dish soap and water tip. Thanks,
Sjarz. I live in NE New Jersey and ants are a part of
summer here. I also hear cucumbers work well.

Pesky things, ants. I use a product called Terro, it's the best. I have ants every Spring and Terro always takes care of them.

Hummm, well the fire ants that lived in my carport planter in GA LOVED mint. Never got rid of the ant bed OR the mint!

The first summer DH and I were married I made chocolate chip cookies and left them on the counter while I ran to pick him up from work and when we got back home I was so excited to give him the cookies I had just made and they were covered in sugar ants. It made me sick.