To use DE?

[frostedviolets]

Diatomaceous earth that is.

I use it on the carpet to prevent fleas, we used to use it in the coop when we had chickens and we’ve just had a mild infestation of ants in a pot plant so used it there too.

I was under the impression it killed insects quickly.

Just had two ants in my kitchen, I tolerate them in the garden but don’t want them in my house.

Quickly puffed some DE over them and was shocked to see that they seemed to be completely immune to the DE effects...

I squashed them in the end because I won’t tolerate a single ant in my house, one leads to the army..

But now I’m feeling really quite guilty about using the DE at all as it looks like it must take quite some time to kill the insects?

I don’t like the thought of then having a long drawn out death but at the same time, I am loathed to use chemicals like raid.
But I feel I have do/use something because I don’t want them in my house!

[BlueJava]

Apparently it takes a few hours to a few days, google showed me this

[1Morewineplease]

I’m not a fan of insecticides, primarily as I once, very stupidly, poured ant powder all around the edge of my house owing to a nasty infestation.
My toddler son was eating a carrot stick and I suddenly noticed that he was eating one with white powder on it... he’d dropped it in the ant powder and picked it up and ate it.

After that I vowed to find a more natural method and found that peppermint oil was very effective. I diluted in a spray and put it neat into a nest.

I still have a couple of nests outside but very rarely get any inside the house any more.

[frostedviolets]

Oh.
I don’t think I can continue using it then

I don’t really want to kill them but I really really don’t want them in the house but I certainly don’t want them to suffer either

[OneForMeToo]

I use de but it sounds like you may use a lot. It’s not exactly brilliant for us humans lungs you know that right?

[frostedviolets]

Have to be very careful with peppermint oil as I have a cat and fairly sure it’s toxic to them.

Have got some lavender planted outside as they allegedly don’t like it but they don’t seem too bothered about it to me!

[SilverDragonfly1]

Equal amounts of baking soda and icing sugar, made into a stiff paste and left near the nest. The ants can't tell the difference between the two different molecules and the bicarb reacts with their formic acid and they explode. Or if, like me, the idea of exploding ants upsets you, just use the sugar. They won't come indoors if they have an attractive food source outside.

[ChristmasFluff]

I was going to say similar to above - ant powder or whatever applied judiciously indoors - and sweet stuff outdoors.