How do you get rid of fire ants?

Question

Every year we have them crop up around the front porch outside our house, too close for comfort. How do you successfully get rid of them?

Answer 1

Because we have pets, I looked for years to find a safe chemical free way of ridding ourselves from fire ants. The best remedy I've found is grits. Next time your at the grocery store look for instant grits, has to be instant and not quick cook. The idea is the workers take it back to the queen she eats and the grits expand in her stomach rapidly killing her. Once the queen is dead the ants move elswhere. So while your not killing the entire colony, you are forcing them to move out. So try it for yourself, a box of grits might cost 2 dollars. Just sprinkle a quarter cup on and around the hill, and after a day or two you'll notice the colony is vacant. Then just wash the dirt down with a hose.

Answer 2

http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/...

Answer 3

I really love animals,except snakes,spiders,and other things like that.

Why don't you you research around and find some way to get rid of them without hurting them.

Answer 4

Sprinkle baby powder around where they are and along the front porch.They do not like it because it sticks to their feet and makes it hard to move around. They can not leave a scent trail for other ants to follow. They usually die soon after getting the powder on their feet also.I have used this many times to keep ants out of the house and it has always worked for me.

Answer 5

this works great for us, we have the really bad fire ants, the ones i swear would eat you alive. we tried everything, then my husband bought Melathion (not sure on the spelling) mel a thy on. it smells really really bad but for a 1 1/2 years they are gone. or very little. we put some on and they are gone again. you can buy it at a hardware store. good luck  

Answer 6

We have the same problem.  We have always sprinkled the ant poison/granules around the outside of our house and that has seemed to work.  We also heard that if you sprinkle some grits on top of their mound, they will carry them into their nest to the queen and she will die.  We tried it and it worked!  Sometimes if you use poison, the annoying little critters just move their nest, but supposedly the grits (and they can be the instant kind) actually cause the ants to die.  I don't know how scientifically 'real' this is, but it DID work in our yard.

Good luck!!