Ants......how to stop the invasion

[Joe Bob]

My Momz (shut up Sid) has a manufactured home on stilts. There is a severe drought and she has an invasion of black ants.

Back before my divorce when I owned a home, I used a Hudson sprayer to lay down a barrier and then bombed the house once a year. The bombs and the barrier juice are NLA in her area.

Besides bait and sealing the doors and windows on the house.....is there an alternative barrier juice and commercial bomb that works? There are no pets or plants inside the house.

[GWN7]

2 cups Sugar
1 cup Water
2 TBS Boric Acid (Borax)
◾Mix and place in small saucers around the house

The worker ants take this mix back to the hive and it kills all.

[GWN7]

Homemade Ant Killers: Recipes & Tips : TipNut.com

[porsche4life]

Hot shot gel in a syringe applicator. Follow them back to the den and apply gel liberally.

[Rick V]

Pet aardvark?

[MongooseGA]

I've been having problems with them coming in from a floor vent in the room where my dog's food is. They'd swarm his food bowl and I'd have to toss the whole thing out.

I put a thin ring of cinnamon around the vent I found them coming in from. I put two colony killing baits inside the ring. Then I poured boiling water down the holes I could find outside the house that lead to at least one colony.

No more ants.

[Evans, Marv]

We don't have ants inside, but have red ants and those really small black ants outside. Once in a while I go around the perimeter of the house and a ways away and eliminate colonies. I use Tempo SC, which is an ant insecticide. I think now they have Tempo SC Ultra which kills ants, spiders, roaches, etc. It can also be sprayed from a spray bottle inside along base boards, cabinets, etc. I buy the 8 oz. bottles. They come with a measuring chamber like bottles of Stabil. You meter out 18 ml per gallon of water. I put it into an empty gallon container of that Home Defense spray from H.D. For the outside, I pour a bunch of it down the entrances until it backs up & won't go down anymore. The next morning the colony has collapsed. Maybe not for those who want to use an organic alternative, but it gets the job done in a matter of hours.

[Noah930]

There's a chalk you can buy in Asian grocery stores. Draw a line with it and ants literally won't cross over it. As a kid, we'd draw a circle around an ant and watch it bomb around endlessly from edge to edge.

The product literally looks like small pieces of white chalk. The cardboard package (like crayons) is about the size of a couple AA batteries and has cartoon pics of ants on it.

[porsche4life]

Why is this the first I'm hearing of this chalk!? I must find this.

[slodave]

Chalk has been a long time trick.

The Hot Shot does work, but they adapt after a while, though it does take a couple years for them to adapt. There are a number of organic sprays available, made from citrus products that work well.

My parents have succumbed to a professional chemical product once a year that is not supposed to be terrible for the environment. It's not a poison, but a spray that gets applied around the house, much like the chalk and creates a barrier that the ants won't cross. In our SoCal climate, it gets applied right around the time ants show up and keeps them away until it cools. Once a year application. Though, if they do get by, you're screwed and have to use the citrus poison or other method.s They've had fairly good luck with the chemical barrier, but it did fail this year.

[mattdavis11]

Black ants hollow out wooden structures. You mention that the wobbly box is on stilts, wood, I presume. I'd move out of the basement, Joe Bob.

[gamin]

I had lots of odorous house ants coming in early spring. Here is how I got rid of them and I mean zero ants in the house. Buy a bottle of Termidor SC on amazon. Not cheap but it goes a long way. Termidor is labeled for ant applications. Read the label. Mix and apply per label directions using a compressed air sprayer. Can reapply every six months. Again, I now have zero ants in the house and a happy wife.