ANTS!!

[yoyo]

I have ants creeping along the skirting board from outside the front door. Was certain that I had read that custard powder was effective so I liberally sprinkled cornflower. Well the rain has now blown through the ill-fitting door and made a nice paste. When I have cleared that up (before DH comes home hopefully) any suggestions for anything that can be used until I get some child-friendly but lethal-to-ants stuff tomorrow?

Ive been told that they dont like any powder.I put baby powder on some by my front door they were dead by the morning

We have had ants everywhere but I bought this little thing in Sainsburys for about 2 quid and it is a miracle device!

No ants whatsoever since using it. It consists of a circular house of ant 'bait' which they take back to the nest and systematically infest the whole colony with poison. You get two or three in a pack too so super cheap.

Never usually have much faith in cheapo stuff like this but it soooo worked!

Spray round the skirting with kitchen or bathroom cleaner.

It won;t keep them out for long but might work til tomorrow.

OK I remember posting about this last year and nobody was interested but...get some ordinary borax (Boots have it, v cheap in the washing section - it's used I think for whitening whites), mix it with an equal quantity of icing sugar. Put some in a coffee-jar lid or similar and leave it fairly near the nest. The ants should take it back to the nest as food, and the borax kills all the ants from there.
If you see dead ants near the lid then tip some out and add more icing sugar. They have to get it back to the nest for it to be effective.
It's so cheap and easy.
PS Keep it out of the way of children.

Pruni - do you think that would work if I only did it overnight (have a curious three-year-old)?

Tortoise - they were having a whale of a time in the cornflour (why didn't someone correct my spelling? Very ) so not sure baby powder would sort them out.

Nannyme - yours sounds like a commercial version of Pruni's. Is it okay to use with children around?

FrayedKnot - will spray.

Have taped up door but there is a gap and the blighters are still coming in. Giant ant nightmares for me tonight.

B&Q do a spray called Ant Stop that is safe to use with kids and pets around. I sprayed it around last thing at night and came down expecting to find little bodies everywhere but they seem to tidy up and eat each other as they go. No toxic floor, no dead ants and no live ants.

are you in a terrace?

we have found that whatever gentle methods we try and use, because someone else on the street (prob without kids!) is using some mega toxic ant poison, they just move on from that house and infest ours even more! Have a walk up and down the street and see if they are going into anyone else's house. They are much harder to kill off then.

Not in a terrace. Will check out Ant Stop. Since taping up the door they seem to have moved on. Probably gone next door.

bucketsofdinosaurs (mouthful of a name !), ants take their dead back to the colony.

Oh NdP now you've made feel sorry for them.

lol