Sugar ants can literally take over a home. You need to get granule ant poison and sprinkle around the entire perimeter of your home. If yours is a crawlspace foundation, you need to toss in some of the granules into the crawlspace vents. Empty your pantry, get a can of Bengal Gold, and spray a line of it all around the ceiling, all around the floor, and up every corner. You need to do this inside your cabinets as well. Bengal is the only thing that works, and it stays active for a year or more. Any air-tight container will work. Walmart has some clear off-brand ones that hold up great.

Are you sure they are rats or, are they mice? Mice generally stay within a 12 foot area of a water source. Rats do a bit more traveling. That means if there are openings, they can leave the house for the water source and re-enter. If they can get their nose into an opening, they can wriggle their body through it. Then they'll gnaw on other things for food. Either way, mike kaiser offers the best advice to make them go away on their own. The poison and traps will get rid of the ones that are there now. However new critters, in their search for food, water, housing will enter openings in their search. They just won't stay if you do as mike mentions. That means you'll still have to disinfect on a regular basis.

Lisa A, I'll repeat, an earthquake safe building is one from which the people get out. Your friends in their Tokyo high rise got the good out of that. Highrises on cushions or rollers, which are built to sway rather than tilt, and have dampeners to prevent Galloping Gertie harmonics from building, are, when built correctly, like your friends' building, earthquake safe. There's no way to build a building that won't have some kind of damage if the quake is strong enough where it is. Low, stud and stucco houses survive quakes pretty well. I'm not sure about metal studs though. They can twist, but then they might stand longer than wood. And considering the prevalence of termites here, at least they haven't been eaten. My friend always jokes about how the three little pigs may have been right for storms, but had it all wrong for earthquakes. The house made out of bricks would fall down (though in '94, the city had skip loaders out in the streets before noon, picking up the fallen bricks from the streets, which I thought was very efficient. :) The one made out of sticks (stud and stucco) is the best of the three, but straw (daub and wattle) isn't bad. Kevin, I'm happy to be corrected or enlarged upon!! I, being too used to it, left out the most important part, which is to stay where you are if it's safe, drop and cover your head. That's what you're supposed to do next to the supporting piece of low furniture for the "safe triangle" rather than going running for doorways. I'm not familiar with that e-mail cited, but that's a very good link you appended. The mis-information e-mail claimed that getting under objects like tables is dangerous and so was bed. The sum of it is: The American Red Cross has not recommended use of a doorway for earthquake protection for more than a decade. The problem is that many doorways are not built into the structural integrity of a building, and may not offer protection. Also, simply put, doorways are not suitable for more than one person at a time. The Red Cross, remaining consistent with the information published in "Talking About Disaster: Guide for Standard Messages," (visit http://www.disastereducation.org/guide.html ) states that if you are in bed when an earthquake happens, remain there. Rolling out of bed may lead to being injured by debris on the floor next to the bed. If you have done a good job of earthquake mitigation (that is, removing pictures or mirrors that could fall on a bed; anchoring tall bedroom furniture to wall studs, and the like), then you are safer to stay in bed rather than roll out of it during the shaking of an earthquake. Also, the Red Cross strongly advises not try to move (that is, escape) during the shaking of an earthquake. The more and the longer distance that someone tries to move, the more likely they are to become injured by falling or flying debris, or by tripping, falling, or getting cut by damaged floors, walls, and items in the path of escape. Identifying potential "void areas" and planning on using them for earthquake protection is more difficult to teach, and hard to remember for people who are not educated in earthquake engineering principles. The Red Cross is not saying that identifying potential voids is wrong or inappropriate. What we are saying is that "Drop, Cover, and Hold On!" is NOT wrong -- in the United States. The American Red Cross, being a U.S.-based organization, does not extend its recommendations to apply in other countries. What works here may not work elsewhere, so there is no dispute that the "void identification method" or the "Triangle of Life" may indeed be the best thing to teach in other countries where the risk of building collapse, even in moderate earthquakes, is great. By all means, get under a large, sturdy table unless under it is the place right in the path of flying dishes or light fixtures. If you're in a dining room, under the table is probably the best place to be. What the Red Cross leaves out in the above quote, since it's directed at the problem e-mail in question, is that people who learned to get under their desks at school don't fit in the knee holes of their current desks. The "drop, cover and hold on" works. If you do that and you want to stick your head under the desk, and expose your bum, your head will be better protected, but when people just go for the "get under the table" they often stick their bums under and have the more delicate extremities--their faces and tops of their heads--sticking out! Also, people try to get under their beds and end up with injuries they wouldn't have if they'd just stayed in bed or dropped beside it. Bed is safe IF there isn't a chandelier or ceiling fan above it, a tester, artwork, or other heavy thing on the wall beside it, a tall dresser, armoire, or mirror that's not strappped to the studs close beside it. If you're in bed, pull the covers over your head. Literally!! Teach your kids to do that too. Make sure when you set up your nursery that there's nothing that can fall on Baby's crib--good advice even if you never have earthquakes--and, for Goodness's sake! don't run to Baby when the shaking starts! Baby is safer in the crib than in your arms, and you're safer staying put. Most earthquakes that are big enough to do damage last less than a minute. You can put on your shoes and go get Baby after the shaking stops, and before the first aftershock. If things are falling on you and you don't feel safe where you are, find a structural doorway, or a strong support for the "void area" (the safe triangle). Staying put is good if crap isn't falling on you, but if you can see a place within a few strides that has less falling crap, go for it. It's only going to get worse. The big difference between the safe triangle notion that's current in the U.S. and the triangle of life idea from that e-mail is that the former is supposed to shelter you from falling bookcases, partitions and other tall crap that's coming down and trying to bonk you on the head, and the latter is trying to find you an open pocket when a whole building comes down. I'm not sure that will work in a falling building situation since you don't know which directions the walls and beams are coming from. It's more shear luck if the way the building falls gives you an open space. To Buehl--a belated happy birthday wish. I got distracted yesterday by comings and goings and forgot to write it down. :)

We also used the same type Nosoccermom posted. We didn't have IKEA, but they should work with all drawers & doors. One caution: If your child is technically/mechanically oriented, s/he may figure them out. My son did at around 2 or 3 - I found him staring at/studying them one day. After a few minutes, he reached in and pushed down the lever - and the door opened! So much for child-proofing! (I found him doing the same thing for the toilet lock - it took him longer to figure it out, but he eventually did.) The moral is that you should not count on these devices - it's better to put anything dangerous somewhere else locked up. I didn't mind my children getting into pots & pans, etc. As mentioned above, I put anything really dangerous (knives, cleaning supplies, alcohol, etc.) elsewhere. Glass/ceramic were all in upper cabinets at the time. If they wanted to get into the cabinets/drawers, it was OK. But, I made them help me clean up when they were done playing.