Ants?! Please help..?
Question:I went to feed my nursing mother cat today..and her can food was covered in ants! I have tried the black ant traps, but god they aren't helping! I went and checked around my room and they are all over my foundation concrete. Is there any thing that I can use to kill them in my house and outside? Is there a powder that I can put outside? Then what can I use inside. Geesh I hate ants!
Answers:
I just had the same problem and a friend of mine told me about ant bait that worked really, really well!
It's called Quick kill or Sure kill (can't remember which) and Combat makes it.
I put some outside on ant trails and also inside in my kitchen. Within about two days they were all gone, none even outside! and I haven't seen any since.
Good luck with that!
Where are the ants in your house? If they are near a bathroom or sink, they are looking for moist food. Try a liquid bate. They worked for me. As for killing them, just use amoina or bleach. Really any chemical will be effective.
you can get ant killer at your local garden centre
ok some simple sulutions are flower (the stuff you bake cookies with) put that on the floor.. no more ants garanteed! or sugar! (though you say cat and the cat might eat that)
hope this helps :)
ah yeah and please be carefull with chemicals... the cat will get it on its paws and i ashure you kidney failure is very hard to treat!
best thing is to hire pest control but they require lots of money.
or
sulfur
or
you can set up indoor and outdoor ant baits those really do work. don't use spray because you are only covering up ants problems not solving it. you want to use bait to destroy the entire colony including the queen. or the king. or prince and princess. just destroy the entire ants kingdom
Baking Powder (house hold trick). Put plenty of baking powder everywhere the ants are. The ants will eat it, their stomach will expand until they explode. Sounds pretty nasty but it works. Withing 1-2 days they should be dead and you can sweep them up.
pour bleach all the way around the house,on the outside, on the inside get bug bimbs and set them off , make sure to take your pets with u when u set the bombs off
mint plants, or mint extract will repel them, and will not harm mother cat or her kittens
We've had ants in our bathroom and we used this liquid bate called Terro. You put it on little cards and the ants are attracted to it. They eat it, take it back to the nest, and they all die. So you're not supposed to kill 'em when you see 'em.
However, if you want to do a mass cull spray some sort of killer near their nest and *then* keep the Terro around for the few that may not have died or new ones that may crop up in future. It works really well.
{ETA} Also, maybe just let your cat at 'em. My friend has a cat who likes to eat bugs esp centipedes. It's a gross little thing.
Terro! They'll be gone within 24 hours.
Ant's are very hard to get rid of, so you have to entice them out of your house so what you do is you get a large tin can and smear the inside with cooking oil or something like that the is slippy then you put some maple syrup as the bottom then put it a little distance away from your house and bury it in the ground so only about half an inch or so is above the ground as ants like sugary things they will smell the maple syrup and go after that, you may need to put several of these traps around your house. eventually you should find that they will disappear.you may try putting one in your kitchen to see if that helps .
Dr Knowitall.
I have a ton of problems with ants, and living in a rental can't get the landlord to spray for ants. I have found (after trying many many products) that Grant's Ant stakes are the best, they are not very expensive and you can put them inside and out, and your animals cannot get to the poison either. I stake them about every two-three feet around the outside and then have them inside under the sinks and and in problem areas as well, they are safe enough that i have had them on the kitchen counter at times.
Ants don't care for mint or citrus, cloves or bay leaves, so think orange peel, peppermint tea, lemon juice, ground cloves, etc. If you can plant mint around the foundations of your home, you may deter them from entering. Vinegar has the same acid as citrus, so use it to clean with and ants won't feel welcome. (It probably erases or overpowers the odor trail other ants have left for them to follow.)
Clean bench tops and cupboards down really well, and then wipe down with a clean damp cloth that has a few drops of essential peppermint oil on it, you may need to apply a few drops of oil a couple of times.
Ants hate the smell of it and it is also environmentally friendly, and safe for humans and children, and no residue powders etc to clean up. And the big bonus is that the room smells fresh and minty. I also want to add that you can put the oil on a cotton ball after cleaning and put in the areas you have ants and that should help too...replace once the smell is gone.Try Raid ant spikes around the yard as well.
I hope this was helpful,Good Luck! :)
Diatomaceous Earth !.
"To insects DE is a lethal dust with microscopic razor sharp edges. These sharp edges cut through the insect's protective covering drying it out and killing them when they are either dusted with DE or if it applied as a wettable powder spray. If they ingest the DE it will shred their insides."
Sounds like you have Pavement Ants.
Do this: Go outside (or inside, I guess) and squash one of the ants. Crush it up real good. Now sniff your finger... no I'm not kidding. If there is no odor (maybe just a slight, quick sting in your sinuses) then you're in good shape. If there is a strong odor similar to burnt orange peels or deet, you are in trouble.
Pavement ants, unfortunately, will live under slabs, including the slab of your home. They'll emerge anywhere they want and will go after any food source. Going after any food source is the benefit, though.
If you have any soil or mulch outside, go out and get some Amdro Ant Bait. FOLLOW THE LABEL DIRECTIONS! This is only to be used outside.
Inside use Terro Ant Bait. Apply the Terro away from the area you'd like to feed the cat. FOLLOW THE LABEL DIRECTIONS! Don't try to "make it last" or "make it go further". The terro is a sugar-based boric acid bait and should be applied in areas which are inaccesable to your cat. Boric acid has a very low toxicity to mammals but care should be taken anyways... it is, after all, made to KILL ants.
If there was an odor... call a professional. You have the dreaded Odorous House Ant.
DO NOT SPRAY WITH RAID, WINDEX, LYSOL OR ANY OTHER CHEMICAL PRODUCT. THIS WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE.
Ignore any post which tells you to use vinegar, cinnamon, pepper, bay leaves, mint, spearamant, gum or any other "all-natural" method. While the ants may not prefer the odors or chemicals contained therein, they'll just go around it, or worse, come up into your house through cracks in the slab.
You cannot convince ants to go away nicely. You MUST kill them.
If your cat is an in-out cat, just apply Amdro when it's not looking. The active ingredient, Abamectin B-1 has a very low toxicity to mammals and is very attractive to ants.
Remember: It has to get worse before it gets better! Expect to see more ants than normal for the next week. The more ants which go after the bait the quicker it works.
Re-apply as often as the label instructions tell you to do so.
---CAUTION---
Other posts are listing Raid Ant Spikes. Last I looked, the active ingredient was Cyanide! If the cat licks them, since they're so easily accesable, the cat's toast. Plus, you will kill a few ants, not the entire colony so the problem will NEVER go away.
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