Ants ruining my home

[thewomaninme]

Advice please. Since last weekend my home especially my kitchen is under attack by ants. There are loads and loads in the kitchen cabinets especially the snack cupboard. A good number of ants entered a jar of maple syrup despite the lid being tight enough. Next they have attacked the jar of honey. So much food going down the drain. I never had this problem before. Is there any specific ant spray?. How do I get rid of them? One is crawling on my foot as I type this🤪

There is a poison you can get that they think it's food and will take back to their colony and kill the whole nest. You may need to apply it a few times to eradicate the whole nest.

How are they getting in? I had this when I moved into my new house it was awful. They were coming up through holes in the grouting in the floor tiles in the kitchen. Every time I blocked one hole they’d find another! Called out Rentokill three times, tried all the stuff on the market but only a new kitchen floor (luckily something we wanted anyway) stopped them coming in for good.

We have occasional ant infestations due to upwards of a billion ants nests in our garden.
First thing to do is to clean everything. Be fastidious with your washing up. Keep the dishwasher door closed if it has dirty plates in. Wipe up crumbs immediately.
Transfer food into tins/Tupperware if you can. Ants love sugar so get all your sweet stuff into sealed containers.
You need to try and work out where they’re entering the house (ours come in under the doors). Cover any entry points with Diatomaceous earth. This isn’t a poison, so you don’t need to worry about kids/pets/the planet, but it damages the ants and they won’t walk through it. https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/johnsons-mite-and-lice-diatomaceous-earth-250g?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google_shopping&cm_mmc=Google--CPC--%20google_shopping-_-google_shopping&ita=1976&ito=google_shopping&istCompanyId=7255ccad-a1fc-4729-af31-478f79e5071c&istFeedId=385e6b9a-8b03-4076-a8bb-e4737df8549c&istItemId=itxmxlwrl&istBid=t&cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=10908488636&cq_term=&cq_plac=&cq_net=g&cq_plt=gp&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsPXD6uHv_gIVT9DtCh1sMwe4EAQYBSABEgLbUvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Kill all the ants you see, because they go back to the nest and tell their buddies where the food is and leave a trail for them to follow. Be ruthless.

There is a poison you can use that’s a syrup. They’re supposed to eat it and go back to the nest and die, and then their friends eat them and die too, but I’ve had limited success with it, and you need to be sure that your pets/kids can’t get to it. If doesn’t work on the ants that like fat rather then sugar.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nippon-Ant-Killer-Liquid-25g/dp/B00NABUK92/ref=asc_df_B00NABUK92/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=355143745643&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15792285546632114004&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045778&hvtargid=pla-785148863457&psc=1

It might take a while to kill them all so you have to keep at it, but it is possible.

I once lived in a flat that had a plague of pharaoh ants. We had to put the cat food bowl in a moat of water, and keep all our food in the fridge. They ate everything - soap, toothpaste, cooking oil. It was so disgusting. Rentokil sprayed the flat multiple times but they always came back because they didn’t kill the nest.

I think we also had pharaoh ants. So tiny and able to get into anything. We called out a pest control company. They used a bait that they take back to the nest and I think it means they can't reproduce so did out. I'm sure they told us we couldn't purchase it ourselves due to the ingredients but it looked like the pic. We could see the ants going to it and they did eventually stop.

I’ve just been reading about pharaoh ants and apparently you make it worse by spraying them, so Rentokil did us no favours. This was about 30 years ago before the bait killers were invented though.
I came home drunk and ate a hobnob and after a couple of bites realised that the whole biscuit was seething with them- literally covered🤮

Nippon ant killer liquid, I followed the instructions exactly and they never returned

@Helenahandkart that's horrible. I was wrapping presents on the bedroom floor and had bought cellophane wrapped chocolate lollies, when I went to pick one up it was covered in them. They really stressed me out and made me feel unclean. It was hard not to kill the ones we saw but they needed to pick up the bait and take it to the nest. I wouldn't have people over until they were gone.

Go to your local hardware store and buy a number of ant bait traps. Place them around your kitchen and also outside.
We used to get invaded by ants every year until we started using these. They're really good.

Diatomaceous earth around entry points and ant nematodes for the soil/planted areas outside near nests. Ant traps inside that are child safe like Terro and clean everything. Sealed jars for food or in the fridge.

Like @Aerielview we get ants annually in the house and last year used an ant bait thing by the front door and almost overnight the problem was gone. This year using AntStop! bait station from Amazon and so far so good... Previously we would wake up to a black line of ants across the hall / dining room into the kitchen that we had to hoover up multiple times per day.

The ants in my kitchen are like these. Ants in my native country are very tiny compared to them. These are quite big to the real eye than the pic

Happened to me many years ago on a new build.
They appear this time of year. Neighbour told me to use talcum powder across all windows and doors. They cannot get through it.
Do it May 1st and they have never come back.

It's very hard to tell from that photo but if normal black uk ants then you can get any bait stations in a lot of places but those wouldn't work on the kind of ant we had which were much smaller and lighter in colour.

Nippon ant killer liquid. We use it every year and works without fail. Find out where they are coming in and where their food source is. Try and eliminate food source (not always possible). Then get some old coins and place a drop of liquid on each one, along their route. Takes a couple of days to work but then they don’t come back. We don’t even change the liquid every day.

@Nannyamc Yup! Even our home is new built. We moved last year but never had this problem.

Our house used to be terrible for ants coming up through the floors and walls. Indorex spray which is for spraying your house against pet fleas also works to kill and discourage ants. Sadly we no longer have pets, but I still use this every spring along where ants used to come in under skirting boards, where walls meet floors, under external door thresholds etc. One treatment a year and we have no ant problem at all. For a quick treatment (whilst you run out and get the Indorex!) vinegar seems to deter them.

@Helenahandkart I have a baby and am confused whether to use any poison or no.

We got rid of the last lot using only Diatomaceous earth and cleaning everything, so you could probably do it without poison. The Diatomaceous earth isn’t a poison, it’s just a powder that fatally injures the ants by slicing up their exoskeleton, so won’t hurt your baby at all. And obviously it’s better for the environment to not use poisons.
You do have to be really on top of it though, constantly killing them and constantly cleaning up after yourselves.

If your baby isn’t crawling yet then the Nippon liquid should be safe. As PP said, you put drops of it on coins along the paths the ants follow, and in places where you see lots of ants. Keep an eye on it and top up if necessary.

We used it in the garden and it was no match for the huge numbers of ants nests we have, but indoors it should work.

I had a problem once and had a good idea where they were coming in. I went outside that spot and put a massive pile of honey, they all went there, then blocked up the hole. Worked a treat but was lucky it was one obvious entry place.

Boric acid is toxic to ants. When the insect ingests a small quantity of boric acid, it doesn't kill it right away – slowly but surely, the ant will be poisoned. The way boric acid-based bait works is simple: It attracts foraging ants, which swallow it and hold it in their stomach, without dying.

You can get Boric acid on Ebay.

Then you need to do this..

Mix 1/2 C sugar, 1 1/2 Tbsp Borax, and 1.5 C warm water. Soak some cotton balls in the mixture, and put them out near the mess of ants. The sugar attracts the ants, and they'll take the Borax with it back to their home. Eating the Borax kills the ants.

I have only ever had ants once and this is what I did, I aslo gave some to my hairdresser who had them in a marching line from her kitchen to the back door, it was like something out of a cartoon.

She used this and they disappeared over a few days.

I've had ant wars for years.
Tried all the remedies mentioned here but they still come back. I have nests all over the garden.
Best thing I found was from amazon called Combat. It seemed to work for one season last year but they are back now. Nippon and ant stations - all ignored.

Exh had ants in his bungalow until the nest was found & boiling water poured in it, then all entry points blocked with either concrete or the long window next to the front & back doors were taken our & reinstalled to ensure no gaps underneath to where they met the door frames, no ants ever since.

I'd take everything foodwise temporarily out of kitchen and make sure every crumb dropped on the floor is hoovered/swept up, so there's no sources of food for them. Also, I'd put Nippon powder in every cupboard (obviously thoroughly clear before returning food. If you've got kickboards, take them off and put power along all the gaps.