I'm actually having a problem with ants near the kitchen sink, especially *inside the coffeemaker.* They seem drawn to the stuff.

edited to add: no fancy flavored coffee or anything

I've read different reasons for the coffee grounds workings. For all I know the vinegar worked because it cleared the trail. I could be pulling my hair out again in a week.

Though I will say the coffee pot--when I used one--was one of the few places they didn't go near.

I have the same problem area the sink. Having the deck right off the kitchen makes it difficult to find the ant trails/holes and get right at the source.

I get those. I have yet to find anywhere they won't go.

thanks for the tips and hope it continues to work for you.

I hope that keeps them at bay. We only get fire ants into the house and have used cinnamon as a deterrent. If they got bad a dusting of kitty flea powder under the rug at the doors. We drink a lot of coffee. I'll try creating a boundry with coffee grounds around the house. And I have a rosemary plant it a bed that has been plagued by fireants. That will be a good place to test the coffee grounds.

I couldn't imagine. Good luck with them!

Don't think I have actually killed too many, but I have managed to "move" them back to the edge of the woods.
I use the hose that has been lying in the sun to run hot water into the mounds. that works pretty well.

Other mounds near the lawns and driveway I run over with the car and golf cart tires. They don't come back after a couple of days of that.

Knock on wood...never even knew they would come into a house.

I've been here for 10 years now. So, I've calmed down now. In the beginning, though, I had horrible thoughts that one day I would wake up with the red imported fire ants all over me eating me alive. Luckily, I've never had them get inside the house. I've had other ants get in here, including the crazy ants, which is something unpleasant too, but not the fire ants. I hope I stay lucky.

Before moving here, I hadn't even dealt with the red imported fire ants, just the native ones. So, I had no idea something could be so aggressive in the ant world. You can touch a blade of grass on a native fire ant mound and they'll send out a few ants to check, almost like answering the door to see who knocked. You touch a blade of grass on a red imported fire ant mound and they'll empty the mound in seconds and spread out looking for who dared to mess with them. They'll mess up the first living thing they can find without mercy. They aren't playing. They mean BUSINESS. They are the honey badgers of the ant world. Too bad someone can't train them to know when it is salesmen knocking at the human door and have them answer the knock. That would get rid of someone really quick. They'd HAVE to leave.

just treated the trails and problem would go away..

couple of squirts not a mass spraying

so I can't get to all the trails. When we re-do the deck I'm going to make sure I can access all the way under.

Get it at lowes. Comes in white qt sized bottle. In granules. Use it around the entire perimeter of your house. It will actually pull the ants out of your home. I re apply about every 6 weeks. Only thing that consistently works and is not toxic. Have only used on small black sugar ants.

from wiki:
Amdro is a trade name for a hydramethylnon-based hydrazone insecticide, commonly used in the southern United States for fire ant control. Amdro was patented in 1978 by the American Cyanamid company, now Ambrands, and was conditionally approved for use by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in August, 1980. It is a delayed-toxicity food chain killer, in which soldier ants carry the bait into the mound and feed it to the queen, killing her and decimating the mound. Amdro uses a corn grit and soybean oil base, and must be used within three months after opening to be effective. Amdro has several drawbacks: (1) when it rains, or the bait is moisturized, Amdro loses its effectiveness entirely; (2) insecticide baits tend to be slow working, and take up to a month to be effective; and (3) Amdro cannot be used on food crops.
and
http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/hydramet.htm for chemicals/toxicity
-------------------
by the way, I have used other poisons for ant control, and may do so again. but one should be able to choose

ugh, getting all icked out thinking about it. Borax and icing sugar worked for us (spread around the foundation of the house) and I cleaned everything with peppermint Dr. Bronners. Also, my now-ex dumped a solution of borax and peppermint oil down the ant hill and hit the hole with a hose and flushed them out. Never had a problem after that.

However, those little ants are a bugger to get rid of. Harder to find the hill. I bought some diatomaceous earth too, in case I have any issues in my new home. No ant issues here yet, but OMG the giant spiders, wtf? Of course that's probably why we don't have ants, LOL.

An ant colony nearly destroyed by pesticides reforms and doesn't "remember" which areas are off-limits, dangerous, and unproductive, or a new ant colony moves in.

We don't use insecticides and we have a very healthy ant colony in our garden. When we moved here the ant problem was terrible. Leave dirty dishes in the sink and they'd soon be covered with ants.

After a few rounds of washing all these ants down the drain and vacuuming up the indoor ant trails, they did not return.

I imagine our ant colony as a single entity, and I imagine the ant trails as fingers -- when I cut off an ant colony's finger a few times (no worries, the colony will grow new fingers) it remembers to stay out of the kitchen. It has for more than a decade now. I can leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight if I'm lazy, and still no ants. But drop a bit of food outside and it will be covered with ants very soon.

This ant "knowledge" is kept in the healthy ant colony outdoors.

Things like cinnamon may be more important as signals than as something irritating to the ants; it's like you are putting up a "NO TRESPASSING" sign, "Violators Will Be Maimed."

The ants have some positive attributes too. We haven't had any trouble with fleas for many years. Maybe it's because we don't have wall-to-wall carpeting, but I also think the ants regard flea eggs as a tasty meal. We don't have cockroaches either, but maybe that's more attributable to the stable spider population.

The pest control sales people rarely bother me anymore either. I think they find talking with me disturbing.

It's the same with the home alarm people too. They knock on my door expecting to sell me something by making me feel disturbed and fearful, but they go away without selling me anything and feeling disturbed and fearful themselves.

No, sir, I don't need an alarm system. I've got Spot.



He's actually a very gentle creature so long as you don't threaten him with a gun. He's no reason to fear bullets but he doesn't like the noise.

When I moved into my house almost 15 years ago we started having a problems with ants. Not so much inside but outside. We have pavers in the backyard and one day I saw something crawl out and fly up out of one of them. I managed to catch it in a jar and called the exterminator who informed me it was, indeed termites. As it turned out, they were subterranean and had JUST managed to get to the house. Of course, we HAD to spray pesticides as termites are one of those things you just don't want to play with. Anyway, the exterminator told me that ants will feed off of termite eggs which is why we saw so many ants. Once we sprayed around the house (and yes, it killed everything, including my lovely spiders), no more termite problem and no more ant problem. Of course, the spiders are back (including the Widows) but now we have a problem with HUGE cockroaches that are only outside. Not sure what I'm going to do about those unless, of course, they come inside, at which point it's war. I can stand spiders, snakes, slugs, snails, all manner of critters but cockroaches? Oh HELL no!

They give them away free to anyone who needs it for compost. So much of it gets tossed in the trash, which is such a shame. Now, it's good for getting rid of ants too. Cool!

Be careful when putting it down inside. You want it to go in certain places and not puff it out into the air. Outside you can be a littleless careful. Google more about it.
Here's a link:
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/8107/diatomaceous-earth-as-non-toxic-ant-killer

Have they invaded you yet? Those million-line-soldiers that cover your floor, counters and cat food? I haven't met anyone yet who enjoys even a small ant invasion in their house. If you find that ants are holding an ant convention in your home, it's actually the outside that you need to concentrate on if you want the little buggers gone for good.

Diatomaceous earth (DE) is not only inexpensive and effective; it's non-toxic to kids, birds, and pets. And yet it destroys ants, earwigs, slugs, beetles, ticks, fleas, cockroaches, and bed bugs. As these pasts move across the powder, it sticks to their feet and legs only to get into their joints and exoskeleton.

DE is made up of crushed fossilized skeletons of diatoms and algae. Some people claim that the DE jagged and sharp so it works like little pieces of broken glass and scratches up the insects' bodies then dries up their fluids. But I've also heard it said that instead of scrathing up their bodies, the DE is absorbed into the bug's breathing tubes as well as their joints, eyes, etc. I'm not sure I care about exactly how it works - just that the bugs quit eating and death isn't far behind.

To humans and pets, DE feels like powder and is completely harmless. That said, you don't necessarily want diatomaceous earth in your lungs, so wear a dusk mask when you're applying it. One thing you need to know is that there are different grades of diatomaceous earth. You don't want the stuff used for swimming pools. Purchase horticultural grade DE.

This is cheap pest control, so feel free to apply it liberally around the parameters of your house, in the garden or shrubs, and right on the ants' nest if you can find it. It's also safe to use in the back of cupboards or what-have-you. DE isn't an instant kill; it could take days or weeks to be rid of ants completely. But you will be rid of them without sacrificing anything else.
It would be remiss of me not to state that if ants aren't pestering you; don't pester them. Ants can be useful as pollinators and soil aerators, just as they can be protectors and defenders of the plant-sucking aphid. That said, if they attempt a hostile take-over into my home, it's every species for itself.

I'm always looking for safe ways to get rid of and prevent ants. I have turtles and tortoises that have an outside habitat. Keeping ants out of it has been a real problem. I can't use poisons inside of it for obvious reasons. I can't use poisons outside the habitat because of my dogs.

I have tried edible grade diatomaceous earth. It was okay but not great.

I'm going to try saltwater in water...

How to kill black ants with saltwater
http://www.ehow.com/how_6313922_kill-black-ants-saltwater.html


Anyway, I'm going to save all the tips you gather with your thread.

There's about a 100 of them living in and around my house. since then no fire ants, no carpenter ants, no leaf cutter ants, no little piss ants and no roaches. All you see is a bunch of fat geckos clustered around the porch light at night. I found a nest once with a dozen eggshells that the babies apparently hatched out once

when i first moved into my home in 1996, i noticed small triangular patches that had been cut into the kitchen and bath linoleum. there were also cemented holes around the perimeter of the house. i didn't know what they were and was too inexperienced a home owner to know. i did find out though that they had been drilled deep thru the cement pad of the house, into the ground. over the years, i had regular ant infestations in the kitchen. usually i'd just spray with raid or something like that, but it didn't last long before they returned with a vengence. i never felt that great about using poisons in the kitchen though...

the last ant infestation was enough for me to get off my ass and really do something about it. i called an exterminator and they told me that the holes around and in my home were drilled to eliminate ants and termites. so they sprayed some kind of heavy duty stuff into ONE of the holes that was in the garage. VOILA! no more ants, and it's been about 3 years so far. it cost about $200, but i'm thrilled not to see a single ant since then.

i hope you find the solution that works for you!

I was in a city one winter that experienced a cold snap greater than they had ever had before. a tv station said homeowners should drip water out of faucets to prevent freezing... next day they ran stories to turn taps down to a drip because the fire department was complaining of no water pressure. To some people ..if a drip is good, better to run a little more.
-
the thing that made me chuckle in your post was the imagery ( in my imagination) of people drilling holes in the floors of their houses.

Sprays and "natural" remedies don't kill the queen or the males and workers that are still down in the nest. As long as the queen and males are still around, you'll keep getting the workers. Baits work because the worker ants bring them down into the nest, and the queen will eat the bait and and die. No queen, no babies. Amdro, as mentioned above, is a good bait. So is Terro.

BTW. Windex works great for disrupting them and cleaning up the trails.

Thank you in advance!

We had a really bad any issue a few years ago. It was either one large colony or several small colonies in an approximately 2 acre area.

A friend of mine told me to try and find as many entrances as possible and sprinkle two tablespoons of grits in each hole. They eat the grits and it expands killing them. It doesn't blow em up like the myth of alka seltzer and birds, but rice will kill birds due it expanding. That's why throwing rice at weddings is a no-no.

Anyways, within 10 days we were ant free. No poisons, worrying about our 4 legged kids getting into it etc.

Some grits, sharp cheddar, and five big 'ol grilled shrimp.

on the dirt a distance from our house. They ants come into our house to get water.

Also, we have tried burying a bit of garbage outside away from our house. The ants go for that instead of coming inside.

We have lived here for three years and this is the FIRST year we have had a bunch of ants! I have no idea what is going on, but they are popping up all over the house on the first floor. We had some the first few months we moved here, but it was always in the sink drains. Drain-o took care of that right quick.

That's what I use. It's orange/citrus oil. Safe (so the label says) around food, kids, pets. Kills ants. I got 'em too.