Ant infestation

Posting here out of desperation to try and remove the colony of ants we have right outside our back door. We're on the east coast of Australia. Not sure what type of ants these are exactly (very small so hard to identify), but everything we've tried has failed, including a borax/sugar/water solution (soaked in cotton balls) and various ant powders/sprays. Obviously nothing has gotten to their queen to kill off the colony. There's no mound to be seen anywhere so we believe they're colonised within one of the cracks of the building. We're going mad as they quickly crawl up our feet and bite us to death when we step outside. We can't afford pest control to rid them that way either.

If there are any trade secrets that we haven't yet tried, please tell.

All the ants, fire ants, and harvester ants that I have dealt with have many, many tunnels underground.  I have been putting coffee grounds in my garden and have found the coffee ground over 1000 ft from the garden.  So getting them out of your living space is possible with persistence.  Try hot boiling water or vinegar, both will kill them.  Even if you have not found the mound you should be able to find small holes where they come out.  This will not get the queen but maybe they will move away from your space.

The things I have tried and had good success with are 1. spent coffee grounds, you need to cover the mound and all around at least 1 meter from the outer edge of the mound.  make the grounds a 3 cm thick layer
2. boiling water, this is poured into the mound and then, again, all around the mound at least 1 meter from the outer edge of the mound. Use at least 20 liters per application (may take several applications in increasingly further distances from the edge of the mound)
3. Club Soda, pour into the mound at least 3 2L  bottles of club soda, this removes O2 from the ant colony and they suffocate.

The only other method I have tried with success is to introduce a large number of ants from a different colony, the battle tends to kill off many of the ants, but, it can backfire if they are the same species.

Redhawk

My best results were achieved by using methods 1 and 2 in succession then a few days later using number 3 method.

We use borax with sugar for ants inside. The thing is, they can consume a lot. We never use cotton balls, we just put the mixture in old lids and set them where the ants will find them and refresh as necessary. It is always slow and the ant population seems to grow at first. But with patience, eventually they depart.

Good luck! Getting bit is no fun

Not all ants like the same thing. Some go for protein, some for sweet. So the attractant of peanut butter or cooked egg yolk mashed up with honey or jelly  with a liberal ( but not too liberal) dash of borax WILL work.
If they don't take the mixture - mine is put out on slips of cardstock- then you may have been too generous on the borax.  Pick it up and mix up another batch.

Place this fine repast nearest where they are coming in or on the nest.  Expect the problem to get worse. A Lot worse. Before it gets better. They will take it back to the queen, after they have eaten their fill. Could be a couple days.

Now when you see scouts exploring away from the obvious goodies, resist the temptation to squish them. Instead gently but firmly brush them back to discover the treasure.  Think of each one as potentially the little detonation device that just might feed the queen.

Then you'll suddenly notice one day that they are gone. Just gone. And you pick up the leftovers and you pat yourself on the back.. you won!

If you have cats/dogs that might eat it, you can put out your mixture under a mayonnaise lid propped up a bit by a pencil lying on the floor. Tape the lid and pencil down to keep other pets from accessing it.  Ants enjoy fine indoor dining!

My house sits on top of an ant hill with various sizes of ants.

These are black ants that the bite stings like fire ants.

I have declared "war on ants".

What is working the best for me is to pour my used dishwater on the nest and this is working.

We live in the middle of a forest and ants were regular visitors to our cabin for the first couple years. We tried all kinds of things but the only thing that worked consistently for us was diatomaceous earth. Sprinkle around where they go, and around any holes you see them coming from. They are usually all gone within 2-3 days.

I live in the southeast where fire ants like to take over places and run people completely out. They love to overwinter in my greenhouse and take raised beds away from me. They swarm at the slightest provocation and leave ugly, burning, itching pustules that take forever to go away. Incidentally, I’ve found that goldenrod or mimosa tincture, if applied and rubbed in quickly, stops the burning itch and prevents the pustule formation. I just found a product called Orange Guard that works in just one application on any ants except fire ants and gets rid of them with a couple of applications as long as it doesn’t get rained on. It is a natural product that will not negate your efforts to remain free of chemicals.

Ants have invaded my little half acre in Northcentral Wyoming as well. I attribute it to the wet spring and summer flooding them out of their subterranean mecca. My lot was swamped for weeks. I hope as the heat increases this weekend, maybe the water table will lower and the ants will go away.  For now I have put used coffee grounds in raised beds where the ants and moles/voles have taken over. Not sure if ants are the cause of extreme leaf curl on my tomato plants or maybe the first year compost but there are tomatoes so I am fertilizing and watering and hoping. I've noticed that my solar thumpers that chase voles away also chase off  ants and my beloved snakes. Probably only temporarily.i will try these other ideas as well. Good luck!

What I have done to deter ants inside the house is using some kind of soap, wipe away their trails.  They follow the scent.  If I remove the scent trail, they have to do all the work of finding the food source again, and making the trail.

Outside, I have poured soapy water down the hole and onto them.  The soap , being a surfactant, neutralizes a compound on the outside of their bodies, and makes it hard for them to be alive… whether it’s breathing, which they do through holes in their exoskeleton, or they can’t maintain their fluid balance, I can’t remember, but the soap ruins the surface tension at the interface between their bodies and the water.

It’s a slow process that needs to be repeated, like all the others.

What I have heard about borax is that they carry it underground and put it with their other food storage, and it takes awhile until they have eaten enough, and fed their queen.

I like the other ideas, though.  I’m not going to go out into the woods to find a nest of them, but next time any show up in “my territory “ watch out!

Bryant RedHawk wrote:The things I have tried and had good success with are 1. spent coffee grounds, you need to cover the mound and all around at least 1 meter from the outer edge of the mound.  make the grounds a 3 cm thick layer
2. boiling water, this is poured into the mound and then, again, all around the mound at least 1 meter from the outer edge of the mound. Use at least 20 liters per application (may take several applications in increasingly further distances from the edge of the mound)
3. Club Soda, pour into the mound at least 3 2L  bottles of club soda, this removes O2 from the ant colony and they suffocate.

I have had good success over the years with solution #3.  Sometimes you can't fit as much fluid as indicated into a smaller nest, but just keep pouring it in, smoothly and slowly, until it overflows and won't accept any more.  You may well have to repeat the next day.  After two or three repeat applications, you should find the nest abandoned.

Be aware that you may be killing the colony, or just weakening and annoying it until it relocates elsewhere.  I have in the past successfully obliterated a mound in this way, only to notice another mound popping up 10' away two weeks later, which I strongly suspect to be the same colony on the rebound.  But so long as the new mound location is not in my way, that's fine with me.  And if it is in your way, then go after it again with more carbonated soda.  At that price - carbonated soda at Walmart is cheap! - I can chase a fire ant colony around my property all summer, keeping it weak and preventing it from seeding any new colonies at a sufficiently cost-effective rate.  I consider this a win.

Shari Clark wrote:We live in the middle of a forest and ants were regular visitors to our cabin for the first couple years. We tried all kinds of things but the only thing that worked consistently for us was diatomaceous earth. Sprinkle around where they go, and around any holes you see them coming from. They are usually all gone within 2-3 days.

Surprisingly, I've not actually found DE to be terribly effective at controlling ants inside a house.  I've tried it.  It might deter other insects, but given a day or two I find that the ants simply carve out little pathways through the DE and continue on their merry way.

Diatomatious earth is worth a try as it will cause loint falure in the exoscelatin of the ant and eventualyu cause dehydration of the foraging critter so no path is visibe or detected by following antns

Ants in the house in response to this request.

L. Barry wrote:If there are any trade secrets that we haven't yet tried, please tell.

I have tried many ways to manage ants but my biggest success has come with using diatomaceous earth (DE). Here is what it is.

"The word "diatomaceous" comes from the root word "diatom", which is a single-celled organism found in freshwater lakes and riverbeds. Diatomaceous earth is a chalk-like powder that is made up entirely of these diatoms that have fossilized over thousands of years. Depending on the grade of diatomaceous earth, these diatoms can be used to promote health, preserve food, and even control many common household pests & insects."

There are deposits of these millions and billions of long dead and collected animals and you buy this affordable material in a small bag available through many sources including Amazon. The material is in an extremely powdery form, so powdery you can apply it in a duster. I fill the duster and apply it in areas where I have an infestation. Usually this is their trails they use to scout into the house I am sure for food and looking for a place to lodge and nest. If you get them early it eliminates the problem and they go elsewhere. I don't have to tell you they are persistent insects.

Its particles have sharp edges that look like broken glass when examined under a microscope. These edges are able to cut through an insect's exoskeleton, and the powder sticks to its feet and skin. Once the powder is absorbed by the insect's body moisture, the insect dehydrates and dies. What I have found and I think this is critical to its success is that the ants recognize the hazard and avoid it, meaning that they do venture into the area anymore. So appears to work based on their recognition of the risk. I used a sweetened Borax type ant preventer and only found that it seemed to attract even more ants and I just kept adding the material. I have used the diatomaceous earth for several years and it works every time.

So I apply the diatomaceous earth mostly along baseboards where I see evidence of ants. The duster often applies more than needed and only a thin coating is necessary to do the job. I just use a broom to spread the DE along the base of the walls, that's where the ants like to establish their trails. I also concentrate on areas where they enter, often a crack or space around a window. I also will dust about six inches of ground next to the foundation outside and the point where the foundation meets to sill off the outside walls.

Hi Robert,

Welcome to Permies.

Oatmeal- my grandmother from Texas would just sprinkle regular old dry oatmeal around the ant hills. The ants carry it home (it's cool to watch the oatmeal "stand up" and form a little line on the ground) and everyone eats it, and it explodes inside them. Has always works for me.

Artie, welcome to the forum.

That is a great suggestion about using oatmeal.

I have also read that grits works something like that.

Honey Church




How to love an (ant) invasion

Photography by Stefano Bucciarelli/Unsplash
“The morning you showed me Honey Church, you shook your head and smiled, so happy at the sight of their eating and praying. You crouched over them like a strange and benevolent god refilling their dish, watching from the edges while I watched you watch them. Those tiny creatures so completely at our mercy.”

How might someone who is even opposed to killing mosquitoes handle a kitchen infested with ants? This essay from Angela Pelster