Get rid of ants indoors?

Question

There are sugar ants in every room of my apartment. I put 12 ant motels in the kitchen alone and it didn't help at all. I see them crawling out from cracks between the cupboards and walls, on the curtains, in the bathroom, etc... I don't want to have the apartment sprayed because I have young children, birds and fish, none of which do well with pesticides. Do you know of anything I can do to get rid of the ants? There are thousands of them, I think they might be living in the walls.

Answer 1

Hello. I am looking for ideas too.

There is another thread about this....had some ideas.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

Sounds like you have them pretty bad. I lived in an old house once that I think was the home for the MOTHER colony in my state. I had a professional come spray and when he saw how bad they were, he used his strongest spray. I only had to be gone for 2 hours. So I took my son, my cats and ferrets, and went to visit my mom. All I had to do to my fish was to unplug it and make sure the lid was down. He told me that I didn't have to take my animals, just put them in a room that wouldn't be sprayed, but I wanted the whole house sprayed. Everybody did fine...no fish died. The ants actually lived in the wood of this house (it was so old) so the guy came back 3 days later after it rained, and then about 10 days after that cause I started seeing them again. I moved out 4 months later, but did not see one more ant after he sprayed that last time.

The house I live in now is much nicer and I only deal with them occasionally. I use LEMON EXTRACT in the window sill beside my ferret cage, and that helps. I have heard you can PLANT PEPPERMINT around your house to help keep them away.

My problem right now is I can not find where they are coming from. They just seem to appear out of thin air. They are just running around on the counter, but are not bothering anything in my cabinets (honey, syrup, sugar...nothing) or the cat food or water????!!! I am baffled. I can spray them with cleaner, wipe them up, and stand and stair, and then POOF there is another one...no trail...nothing. I have even moved my stove and fridge out expecting to find a colony or something...nothing???!!! who knows?! I would like some thoughts from anyone about what they want if they aren't after food or water,  without starting a new thread.

Thanks and good luck! Let me know if you find some more good ideas.

Answer 2

I have been battling this problem for years. It does not matter how clean you keep your home, if you leave a glass, that will will be inundated with ants before you know it!

Yo can go to your Home Depot or Lowes or any home improvement store. Combat makes a gel that you can put out and the ants swarm to it.  It keeps them under control and almost  gets rid of them.  They have other stuff you can use but this seems to be the best solution for me. You will find other products as well and other recopies that include Borax, but I have children and small animals as well and want to keep them safe. If you find something that works for you, Let me know so I can try.

Answer 3

My hubby sprayed WD40 along our sliding glass door last week when the sugar ants started invading!  

I have only seen a couple since then.

Answer 4

Put a trail of cornmeal down.  It will not harm your pets or the children.  They eat it and when it gets wet it swells and they can't digest it.  It really does work.

Answer 5

I have heard using cucumber peelings around the areas of infestation works. Ants hate cucumbers.

Answer 6

Use a mix of cinnamon and sugar. The ants will pick up the sugar, along with the cinnamon, and take it back to their queen. Ants can’t digest cinnamon and once the queen dies from not being able to digest the cinnamon the colony will die without her.