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Minor Deity |
I've lived in this house for 30 years and this is the first year I haven't been able to get rid of our Spring ant infestation. As far as I can tell, they are even different sizes (some are bigger than others, but plenty of each. Hoping the size difference just reflects the same ant species at different stages of development. They DO seem to get along well...) Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon? (What's nice is that I haven't seen any stinkbugs this year, though. They've been a new pest for 2 - 3 years in the Spring. Maybe the ants won out in some competition? Ha!)
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Minor Deity |
Yes! Oh my word, it's been really bad this year. Ants, mice, etc. I put out bait for the ants and maybe it helped but certainly not enough. And this is the week my Fresh Air charge is here (only 1, as the other one cancelled--making it challenge for me to provide an experience that isn't totally boring) and he is no different than the other boys that have been here: Bugs are verboten. It doesn't matter how many times I repeat that they are harmless, they are there and that's what matters. Especially flying bugs. OMG! This is where the difference between city-raised children and country-raised children is most obvious, on a superficial level. Anyway, yes! Ants, ants, ants! And not just in the house--there are areas in the garden that seem to have colonies of ants. I was told it's because of the wet spring/summer we've had so far.
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| Minor Deity |
Sympathies, Bernard (not just the critters but the cancellation . What IS it with these parents not only to turn down such a glorious opportunity, but at the last minute?) I too have heard from locals that "wet year" explanation. I bought it without thinking, but thing is as I recall, last year was also remarkably wet. Wasn't it? 
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Newer ant sprays appear to be safe and work very well. Spray around the entire exterior of the house.
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Gadfly |
I am a huge fan of Terro brand ant bait. If you can find the old-style stuff that comes in a tube (you squirt it out on a piece of cardboard and leave it out) I think it works better than the new self-contained ones with liquid inside a trap. But both seem to work very well - way better than any other baits or sprays we've tried. Any time we've had ants (and we did have them this year after not seeing any for years!) I put out a couple of those baits and they are gone in a day or two. If that doesn't work, I will say that one time, maybe 14 years ago, we had an ant infestation that grossed me out so much I went right to an exterminator -- there were some of those little bitey ants in LL#2's crib biting him as he slept! And some big giant ones that looked like termites but thankfully weren't. At any rate, I called some local indepndent exterminator guy vs. using a big company like Terminex. I have no idea what he used, but he put some stuff around the outside of the house that wiped out the ant population pretty much instantly. And for many years (I'm talking like 8!!!) afterwards, we still did not see a single ant in the house. I probably don't want to know what kind of chemicals were in that stuff, but man did it ever get the job done. | |||
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
I thought it was just me! Though they do seem to be mostly gone now (only in the last couple of weeks), this year the infestation was much worse than normal. Also different sizes showing up at different places.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
They're everywhere; they especially like to build nests under stepping stones in the back yard. Also been finding them in not the usual places. +1 on the Terro products. I'll have to look for the stuff in the tube; I've always used the self-contained ones.
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| Minor Deity |
Just after I posted here the other day, I checked my YouTube subscriptions, and lookie what was there! Yes, he's talking about ants in the garden, but that's pertinent to my situation!!
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Minor Deity |
Good lord, the guy likes to hear himself talk! Go to minute 12. Borax sugar water paste.
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| Minor Deity |
He's a gardening vlogger, it's what he does, it's what people subscribe to him for; he's got almost half a million subscribers. You should see some of the other gardening channels I'm subscribed to, esp. the British allotment gardeners. I love it. 
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Beatification Candidate |
I'll also endorse the recommendation of the Terro ant baits. I've used them for a number of years when I see any ants in the house. Outside the house, I'm not surprised to see some ants. They tend to try to build ant hills in the lawn, but the lawn mower disrupts the surface and sooner or later they disappear. Big Al
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity  |
I wish I could remember what we bought, I'll check when I get home if it was Torro. Anyway, it was a clear gel, squirt it out where the ants are. They were pretty much all gone the next day. Slightly OT here, cicadas are out now, and at night they seem to dive-bomb our windows (the family room has blinds which leave enough light around the edges to attract bugs). Sometimes a cicada will smash into the glass so loudly, I think it must be a small mammal and is certain to break the glass!! And the dumb ones will do it again and again and again! We never had anything like this in our rental (same city, different make-up of the back yard).
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| Minor Deity |
All interesting and I'm glad to know it's far from unique to us - this house especially. I should have specified that the ants I've been troubled by are in the house - and no, not just in the kitchen by any means. Of course, since I'm sun sensitive and and don't have the orthopedics to garden, I don't really know what they may be doing outside.
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| Serial origamist Has Achieved Nirvana  |
Was the rental house newer? When I was living in the DC suburbs, the last summer I was there was a year the 17-year cicadas showed up. One house we lived in had cicadas all over it. The house we lived in later on had none. It turned out that second house (in fact the entire neighborhood) was about 15 years old, so all of the snoozing cicadas got clobbered when they bulldozed the area to build the houses.
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity |
PJ the rental house was maybe 10 years older than our new house. And it's not like we're having a large number of cicadas, it's just that when they do come and smash into the glass, it's super noticeable. I think it's because the backyard at the rental was pretty sterile, grass and nothing and then bushes along a back fence where the property changed from the rental to the backyard of the house behind it. The new house has more shrubbery and decorative plants throughout the yard and at the back of the yard, where our property ends there's a wooded strip of land between the end of our property and the beginning of the neighbor's property. It's kind of like our backyard is surrounded by a little forest. I think that's also why the new house has higher humidity, but that's a topic for another thread...
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