Getting rid of ants...help!

[ItsNiceItsDifferentItsUnusual]

Am getting invaded by ants and it's driving me mad...they form various troups round the kitchen and into cupboards. We're emptying the bins every night, keeping things like fruit cuttings out of the bin etc but they still keep coming. Every time I block an entrance up they find another one.

I've got a 3 year old and am pregnant so really want to avoid poisons. Are there any safe repellents anyone can recommend? I'm using talcum powder which does work but can't really spread it over the entire kitchen.

Have read about the plug ins that emit low level waves to repel insects but sounds a bit too good to be true...

They will find a trail to wherever sugar lies. Make sure surfaces are spotless.

Lemon juice. I squirted it all around the border of my kitchen floor last year and it worked really well

Ants can be extremely difficult to get rid of. It took a pest control company weeks to eradicate them from my mum's house.

I understand you don't want harmful powders put down, but I really would get a pest control company in if I were you. They will be able to pin point where the ants are coming from and tackle the root of the problem.

Nippon ant killer and traps. Yes it's a poison but no one should come into contact with it
www.vitax.co.uk/home-garden/nippon-ant-control-system/

You can buy little contained pots of bait poison from Wilko that are safe to be used around children and pets. They're black plastic pots with snap tabs around the edge, so none of the poison is accessible to anything but things as small as ants. They go in, pick up the poison and go back to the nest with it.

Can I join you with the nightly ant invasion! Yesterday I put ant powder down outside and squirted it into every nook and cranny. Before I went to bed last night they were back!

So I cleaned all the surfaces again moved the fruit bowl and I did put some ant powder down on the kitchen floor and moved the bins.

Fortunately they haven't returned. I am off to get more powder today to squirt outside.

Thank you everyone. Have just spent over an hour going on an ant killing spree, hoovering and mopping everything and disinfecting cupboards. All on dh's lie in day

Shatners I've seen those traps in Wilko... this is poss a stupid question but when the ants get in to the poison do they not leave a trail of it on the floor as they return to the nest?

I'm a bit paranoid as you can tell...

Itsnice - have you found the ant nest? You need to know where they're coming from to deal with the problem effectively.

Stone, I haven't. They're pretty much everywhere outside (which doesn't bother me) but haven't seen anything which indicates a source. It's a nice day here so I might spent some time outside watching.

I used one of the little plastic poison traps. They were gone within a day.

Can you find out where they are coming from by following the trail of them?
Then disinfect where they are getting in by pouring boiling water and dettol on the entrance to the house and they should loose the scent to the trail.

I did this a few times a day for a couple of days and they stopped coming in.

Sorry crossed posts in the time it took me to write that.
To find the trail I started inside and followed their trail back out of the house (they were all in the kitchen at the back of the house, but were coming in the front door and walking along the hallway).

We had millions of them. Literally the entire living room floor one day looked like a sea of ants. It was shocking and made me feel.really disgusting.

We bought the bait boxes and they were brilliant. Got them from Amazon, put a few down in places i had seen them. That night they were all taking the bait from the box, back to their nest.
Never saw any again.

I think the reason they are best is because tbey take it back to their queen etc to wipe the whole lot out.

We have children and pets and it was fine, i just put them in places like under the coffee table, down the side of the sofa etc. So the kids didnt see it.

Thanks again!

Scrivette they're definitely coming in around the front door area, which is next to our kitchen. They find new ways into the every time I block a cranny but they all seem to originate around the front door. So I'll do the boiling water + dettol thing today.

I think that if they find a new way in after that I'll have to admit defeat and get a bait trap. I can't spend any more time on my hands and knees killing fecking ants.

Put a couple of traps outside the front door.

Are they brown? If so they are Pharoah ants and a notorious bugger to get rid of... however we managed.

Sure you don't want poisons around the place but please call Rentokil and get a quote. It'll be expensive, horrible, an upheaval but so so worth it. X

I bought the plastic poison discs from wilko and put them behind the baseboards under kitchen units. Worked a treat. I also sprayed around the edges of kitchen with dettol spray as a barrier.

Talc around all your skirting boards

Thanks everyone, am making a note of all of these and will be trying them

Legend I think they are, a reddish brown

Ok, have a look at this. I am sure you're not in Haringey but we used to be and Christ Jesus those ants were buggers. They lived in the walls as we were in a red brick 1930s building which is the Mecca of pharaoh ant hangouts it seems.

www.haringey.gov.uk/environment-and-waste/noise-and-animal-control/pest-control/pharaoh-ants

This is what you need.

My mum had terrible trouble with ants in the kitchen - they got everywhere and no amount of ant powder would get rid of them. I bought her one of these - she put it outside the back door and lo and behold she didn't see an ant in her kitchen again. Amazing.

They sell it in B&Q, btw - it's about a fiver.

Ive given up, there are 2 large seperate nests under the house. It would be too much of a fuck on to dig them up to find the queens so I left it.

I clean under everything and sling bait stations everywhere where they're getting in and replace every couple of weeks. They don't go completely but they stop being a pain in the arse.

Have you used those I linked to, gamerchick? My mum had tried everything before that.