Ants - San Jose,CA

I have the same problem, and it's driving me crazy! Yesterday I set out a bunch of the Terro Ant traps. I'm trying to ignore them, they have multiplied. To you ladies who have had success with this product, how long do I have to wait? Do they eventually all go away or do I need to start cleaning them up now? We are eating out every meal because I can't stand to be in the kitchen with them. Fortunately they are in a cupboard and not on the counter. Thanks for the Terro tip.

I used the Terro also. You can buy the traps at Ace hardware. It will seem as if their numbers increase at first but they will go away.

Ants love clean homes and dirty ones too. I use cayenne pepper on their trails. It poisons the eggs in their nests. It'll take two weeks but nary a one will cross your barrier once they aren't hatching anymore.

Spray vinegar in all the cracks and crevices that you think they are coming in from. The will disappear just as quickly as they came. calling an exterminator wont help ya really. Take away the food source so they dont have anything to be attracted too. I spray them with hairspray too, that stops them in their tracks.

I've been successful with baby powder, but it has to be corn starch powder, not talcum powder. There are good bait traps on the market, if you can use them inside a locked cabinet or somewhere out of your children's reach. Good luck!

best thing I ever found was using a 50-50 corn starch and powdered suger combination. The corn starch gums up thier guts and they end up starving but they eat it because of the sugar. The other nice thing is that the ants carry it back to the queens and eventually the whole colony dies out. The downside to this is that it can take a couple weeks to see results. The good thing is that even is the toddlers/dog/cat/bird gets into it, nothing will happen - except maybe a sugar high and a mess (which can be swept up and thrown on top of a ant nest outside! lol).
another combination i've seen is 1 part active yeast, 2 parts molasses and 1 part sugar. In this case its the yeast that eventually kills the ant i believe

The other thing to do is caulk every little hole or creavice you can find, espically those that you know ants have crawled through in the past. Sometimes when you see an ant or two roaming about, try leaving that 50-50 mixture in a pile in front of them and wait for a trail of them.... then caulk the hole and wipe up the rest of them with a bleach solution and paper towels. It takes a little work, but eventually you'll be ant free.

If you really don't want to wait... the best stuff as far as pesticides I've ever used was Ortho's Home Defence. It is a pesticide and toxic... but i bought it for spiders that have snuck into the house (have a kid who reacts horribly to spider bites and have black widows in the area) but haven't had a problem with ants since using it either. It nice because you spray it just before you leave the house for a quick grocery trip and can come back and its dry. I spray it on the base boards, along the ceiling, around the windows, and around each door, in the kid's room, around their beds, ect... and its repels jsut abotu everything for a good 2-3 months during the summer, and closer to 4 months during the winter.

hope that helps!

I second the ant stakes. They take a few days, but work really well and are outside the house. I have never had to run them under hot water though. We also put them in the locked cabinets under the sinks in the bathroom and kitchen. I think the brand we use is called Grant's.

I have used them at 2 different houses and they work everytime. Good luck!

Also, they are very inexpensive which is a plus.

I've had good luck with Orange Guard spray, which I've found at Ace hardware stores. It's based on orange peels, so there's nothing toxic.

I put down ground cinnamon in the places I see them coming into the house. It clings to their bodies, clogs their spiracles, and they suffocate.

If I can't find where they're getting in, I put plain white vinegar, full strength, in a spray bottle and spray directly on the ants.

Lok outdoors for ant hills and if you find them pour boiling vinegar down them.

There is a product in most grocery and hardware stores, they are called "ant steaks" they come about 10-12 two a box. They are round discs attached to a pointed steak that you place outside by your kitchen and bathroom and water spicket areas. (just push them into the dirt) FIRST REMEMBER that before placing them around you MUST activate them by running them under HOT water for a minute or so. I also place them under the kitched sink cabinet and bathroom under the sink cabinet (where children or animals can't reach).

If used properly, these things really work...no odor, spray etc.

They are here because of all the rain and also come if there is consturction going on in your area.

Blessings.....

We had ants really bad when we bought our house 7 years ago. I tried lots of things and was so fed up of sealing all of the cracks they kept finding to come in and was ready to call an exterminator. I went on the internet and found Terro liquid ant baits. They are amazing! You just set them out in the trail (whereever the kids can't get to it) and they find it within a hour or two. The trail will get bigger at first but then will start dwindling 3-4 days later. It kills the entire nest. We are ant free now and I am so grateful to this product. It has been great. I find them at ACE Hardware. They also have stakes you can put outside to prevent any ants you find from coming into your home. Good luck!

Terro, which can be found at ACE. We had an exterminator come and he found a nest and killed the ones around the nest. He recommnded Terro for the remainig ants that were in our walls and away from the nest at that time. He said that Terro is the only thing that works that you can buy at a store. It totally got them all. Good luck.

I've used cinnamon to line where they are coming in from (if you can find it, if not, in door jambs and window tracks) and that stopped the problem. Good luck! I know they are stubborn little buggers!

I had this problem in my last home. First the ants showed up (I am a neat freak, i was not pleased) then the spiders came to get the ants. I HATE BUGS!!!! I looked up online solutions because traps didn't seem to work. I made "spider spray" out of Lavendar essential oil (just a couple teaspoons from a craft store), Herbal liquid soap ( i just had lavendar around) 1 squirt, and warm water to mix them in a spray bottle. It was great!! I sprayed it at all of my windows and doors and directly on the bugs where I found them. I don't know why, but it killed them all and kept them away. Now I have "spider spray" on hand always. Smells crazy good too!!

my co-worker insists that if you take garlic and rub it around the areas where they are getting in they won't come in ?

I had the same problem, always a clean house...but they were always scavenging and managing to somehow find their way into something I carelessly left "unprotected". I've been ant free for four years now.

I tracked where they were coming from and used clear caulking sealant to close off all the cracks and crevasses - that's it. And it worked. They look for different places to burrow and find food.

If your house is as clean as you say, then this is MUCH EASIER than all other alternatives. In the garage I also used clear packing tape to cover one of the cracks they were coming out of because it was closer than getting the caulking LOL

Hope it helps, good luck! :)

You don't need to be concerned about sanitation issues. Ants do not track in bacteria or toxins. And they come around in cycles. I use commercial ant traps. The ants are gone for a few weeks and then they're back. I'm about to decide to ignore them. They certainly aren't worth getting myself upset.

My grandmother was constantly fighting ants and I picked up her attitude, winding myself up when they appeared. Geez! I finally realized that I couldn't do much about them except put out traps. I disliked getting upset more than I disliked the ants. The traps do keep the numbers down.

The traps I use are enclosed and so we're not exposed to the toxins in them.

You can spray around the foundation and that may help but you'll have to spray periodically. You can purchase the spray at any store that sells garden supplies.

It's impossible to take away the food source. They're tiny creatures and will eat the tiniest of crumbs as well as stuff we don't think of as food. It does help to be sure that there is nothing sweet available. For example: I made a pb and jelly sandwich and left the spoon in the sink. It was covered with a swarm of ants in less than an hour. This started a new cycle of ants for us.

Taro Ant Poison is the best. You can usually find it at your local supermarket.

Try the Terro liquid baits (you can get them pre-loaded or a bottle of liquid that you drop on a piece of cardboard from the box. At first, the ants will swarm like crazy! REALLY CRAZY! for a day or two to get the bait, but then there will be fewer and fewer. They take it back to the anthill and it kills them off. You can google them- they have a webpage that explains how it works. It worked for me several times on different hills. I tried cinnamon, too, which seemed to stop the ants from coming in- but you have to know where that is.