Ok, first off I have to say - what the hell is she wearing? Now that that is out of my system, I can go on with my post. For the last 24 hours I have been waging war against an invasion. Yes, my quiet cabin in the woods has been invaded by ANTS!!!!
Armed with nothing more than my trusty vacuum cleaner I have been sucking up the bastards by the dozens. I may need to go out for reinforcements from the local hardware store. It seems these little buggers mean business.
All my intensive web research suggests that they are on a mission for food and that their nest has likely been disturbed. I don't recall seeing any ants in the colder weather and this has sprung up slowly this summer with this massive influx in the past day or so. According to the sites then I don't have a nest - just a whole bunch of seekers looking for a crash pad.
Curiously when I woke up this morning, at least 2/3 of them were dead. Perhaps I'm being invaded by an on going ant war between two colonies? The dramatic potential is almost novel worthy, eh? As I sit here typing I see two more of the buggers. I wish I knew where they are coming from. It's almost as if they erupt from the carpet intact.
Actually I have located at least one and maybe two window frames where they appear to be gaining entrance. I will shortly do a perimeter check of the house. Do you think a flame thrower is too over the top? I hate bugs - mostly mosquitoes but the ants are taking a close second place this summer. Grrrrrrrr.
Armed with nothing more than my trusty vacuum cleaner I have been sucking up the bastards by the dozens. I may need to go out for reinforcements from the local hardware store. It seems these little buggers mean business.
All my intensive web research suggests that they are on a mission for food and that their nest has likely been disturbed. I don't recall seeing any ants in the colder weather and this has sprung up slowly this summer with this massive influx in the past day or so. According to the sites then I don't have a nest - just a whole bunch of seekers looking for a crash pad.
Curiously when I woke up this morning, at least 2/3 of them were dead. Perhaps I'm being invaded by an on going ant war between two colonies? The dramatic potential is almost novel worthy, eh? As I sit here typing I see two more of the buggers. I wish I knew where they are coming from. It's almost as if they erupt from the carpet intact.
Actually I have located at least one and maybe two window frames where they appear to be gaining entrance. I will shortly do a perimeter check of the house. Do you think a flame thrower is too over the top? I hate bugs - mostly mosquitoes but the ants are taking a close second place this summer. Grrrrrrrr.
14 comments:
One word. Terro.
Shelly's right when she posted on FB a while back; Terro is not as good as when it used to have arsenic. But it's still the best. I put it up on my kitchen counter and after a few refills they are gone.
Meanwhile, I wish I could have seen you battling them with the Electrolux. That would have been a sight to behold!
Just picture a wild eyed fat man in a red plaid bathroom with all the lights on, obsessively checking the floorboards and window sills, vacuum cleaner whirring, pacing from room to room...
baking soda. it's like poison to ants but otherwise relatively benign.
mar
Okay, here's what you do.
Squirt a trail of honey away from the house and down the driveway. There, dig a hole and add more honey. Procure a sizable container of kerosene and a box of strike-anywhere matches.
Wait for many ants to collect - this won't take as long as you think. Make thunderstorm noises in your throat and let it rain kerosene. Smite them with a sulfurous Zeus-ian thunderbolt and enjoy the show.
Repeat as needed, or whenever you need cheering up.
(Side note: Ants are intelligent, social creatures. In theory, some of the singed survivors should scurry back to the nest with a warning for the others.)
I think if I saw a wild eyed fat man in a red plaid bathrobe dribbling honey down the driveway to a hole full of honey, I might arrange to have him carted away to the county farm for the disillusioned. (Yea! Red plaid bathrobe and wellington boots wearing a red plaid Yooper hat.)
LOL! As a diabetic I have to be very careful with all that honey. It could be detrimental to my health. Off to the hardware store in search of toxic waste to kill ants!!!
We use Borax and it works very well. If they are sweet-loving ants, I mix a bit of borax into some honey or agave nectar, but it on a lid from a canning jar (doesn't really matter what you put it in) and put it in the path where they are walking. If they are searching fro protein, I put it in olive oil and that seems to do the trick too. They take the stuff back to the nest, share it with the others and in about a day --- no more ants. This has never failed for me. It even worked in my classroom where the harsh chemical stuff did only a short-term fix last summer.
I prefer the Borax method because in addition to the lack of harsh chemicals, it's something l always keep on hand anyway for the laundry and other cleaning.
Good luck!
Carolyn Mason
No, no, no. If you want something truly effective, don't go to True Value! They only sell the wimpy, "consumer-safe" stuff.
What you need to find is an old, abandoned military base, preferably from the Cold War. Somewhere on the property - I guarantee it - you'll find a mound of olive-drab 55-gallon drums. That's the stuff you want.
Collect some in a suitable container, preferably one you don't drink out of regularly. Don't get any on your clothes.
Dribble the liquid around the base of the house. If it burns a bubbling furrow in the dirt, you're doing it right.
This will kill the ants.
It may also peel the paint off the house or buckle the aluminum siding. Don't be alarmed: the blue-green fluorescence in your urine will diminish over a few months.
Scott, I live in a log home - will it damage the logs?
They are that big? I don't think some of that advice is very good.
Go down to China Town and get a box of that chalk. Just ask for the ant chalk. There are two sticks of chalk in a box. The ants WILL NOT cross the chalk line. It's the only think I use on the farm.
China Town? Where I live there is no China Town - not for hundreds of miles.
Do you want m to send you some?
Thanks Lindy - but actually they're gone now. Funny but in the middle of the invasion it seems they were felled by the common cold - oh wait, that was War of the Worlds. These guys apparently were done in by simple bait traps.
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