Invasion Of The Ants

[girlx]

i have a serious problem with ants in my house- both the red biting bastards and the very tiny black ones. i have tried spraying and unabashed killing sprees... but nothing seems to get rid of them. they are in all my packaged food, in my kettle (and thus in my morning coffee), they crawl on my bed and bite me in the night, etc. any tips for getting rid of them?

[Totster]

To stop them getting into food/kettle...

Get a cabinet or table... put the legs inside small bowls filled halfway with water and store food/kettle on/in the cabinet/table. Make sure the sides of the bowls don't touch the legs and keep the table a few inches from the wall.

My wife also marks a line around the bottom of furniture etc.. with what looks like chalk, which is supposed to stop them in their tracks.

No eating or drinking in bed, as the crumbs or possible sweetness of anything left will attract them.

totster

[tracker]

usually when rainy weather arrives, they move in. Spraying is unhealthy for yourself as well.

I had the same. Some traffic-cop-ants tried to make a highway through my bed. I followed the trail to the place where they entered the bed and moved the bed a bit. That did it!

Ofcourse, DON'T eat in bed, because that's inviting them.

put coffee etc. into plastic jars. Most of my food is now in plastic jars and containers but still sometimes they show up. I do not bother since they are a good source of protein. No biting anymore though.

hopes this helps

[Farma]

There are small plastic bottles of ant powder available in supermarkets that work a treat. I ran a line of this powder along the edge of the inside walls, around my rubbish bin and wherever I saw the opening to a nest.

Bingo, no more ants.

[a2396]

I had to batle similar critters when I lived in SE USA. The biting ones are referred to as Fire Ants there. The bite (s) can be dangerous, if you have an allergic reaction to them. Be careful, as the my get into your clothes. They will eat the dead skin left on your clothing. I had to hire a professional pest controler to spray inside and outside the house. If you are living in an apartment or condo treatment can be more complicated, due to the size of the structure, etc. I think the small ones are more difficult to banish.

[lingling]

i have a serious problem with ants in my house- both the red biting bastards and the very tiny black ones. i have tried spraying and unabashed killing sprees... but nothing seems to get rid of them. they are in all my packaged food, in my kettle (and thus in my morning coffee), they crawl on my bed and bite me in the night, etc. any tips for getting rid of them?

Salt, lime and garlic. First, dissolve as much salt as possible in boiling water. Spray this solution on walls etc where they walk and if the nest is indoors down any holes where they come up. They hate salt and will have to find alternative routes. Fresh lime and garlic distorts their sense of direction, so that is also good for distracting them. As for pesticide you need to use the "bait" kind (the stuff they bring back to the nest) to have any effect. Spraying DDT all over the house will only kill worker ants, but if you want to get rid of the queen and her production facilities you need to get the pesticide to the nest, and the best way to do so is by letting the worker ants carry it there.

[Minburi]

Hire Thai Mafia Jing Jokes they hang out with the Taxi and motor cycle taxis.

Call your land lord

Go to Carrefour/Big C/Store and buy some Ant bait

Consider the Karma of killing the ants

Google

Move

Consider that there could be worst things in your bed and life

Hmmmm

[girlx]

hmmm do you know if they sell any "bait" pesticides in thailand, and if so what brand should i look for? thx

[ProfessorFart]

I know an axeman on Ko Chang who could help........

[Farma]

Look in the pesticides, drain clearing, Rat bait/trap area of your local supermarket. That’s where I found the powder I used. I can’t remember the name but think it had a red and green label. There were a number of brands available.

[lingling]

hmmm do you know if they sell any "bait" pesticides in thailand, and if so what brand should i look for? thx

Several different brands. Different ant species prefer different baits so buy one of each and see which one they prefer. If none of them works, try to identify the ant species and go looking for bait specifically for that one. So far I have had success with a combination of the locally available baits and the salt/lime/garlic treatments mentioned above.

Oh, and the water bowls another poster mentioned are available in most "general junk" stores on the countryside. It is like a double bowl in one, where the cabinet/table/bed leg goes in the inner one and water/oil in the outer one. That keeps the leg dry but cuts off all access for ants, roaches etc.

[Minburi]

They look like little plastic bunkers for the ant to get in and then take back the bait to the nest. Kinda like a roach motel. The packs we used came with 4 or 6 of the little black units to place around the room or home. Another idea we did was to get some clear silicone and seal up any of the holes they appear to be coming out of that helped as it changed the routes they were using.

Last resort and we did use it was to spray the room about 1 hour before with a ant and bug spray before going to sleep and close the door with the fan running that helped alot.

[Chang_paarp]

i have a serious problem with ants in my house- both the red biting bastards and the very tiny black ones. i have tried spraying and unabashed killing sprees... but nothing seems to get rid of them. they are in all my packaged food, in my kettle (and thus in my morning coffee), they crawl on my bed and bite me in the night, etc. any tips for getting rid of them?

Look here for similar discussion:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71079

[bina]

hey,

thanx for some ideas will try the salt/garlic/lime thing

we are also over run with small black ants, second story, the whole of jerusalem is at moment run over with ants and mosquitos (a new phenomenon carrying west nile disease).... the ants get on the dog, crawl over me while i watch tv etc....

cant do the legs in water thing cause our furniture etc isnt built for that...

btw, we used to wash the floors with water and some karosene mixed, supposedly that works too ... (in the old kibbutz days)but stinks....

why do they go inside the electric kettle though???? sick of drinking anted coffee

sounds like an international plot by ants to take over...........on the other hand it could be aunts taking over (worse by far)

[farangene]

Best easy fix to get rid of ants:

A few tsps of powdered boric acid (normally used as eye wash) in a sugar with water solution.

Leave the dead ants where they are as the other ants will haul their carcasses them back to the nest for everyone to feast on. It is a simple solution that keeps on working.

Usually within a few days, no more ants.

[lingling]

cant do the legs in water thing cause our furniture etc isnt built for that...

The "double bowl" thing is designed exactly for that. (to keep the legs dry). If you can't find them, just take any two bowls, a small one just big enough for the legs and a slightly larger one outside it. Put the small bowl in the larger one, put the furniture legs in the smaller bowl and fill the larger one with water (or cooking oil). Repeat for all legs/furniture with an ant problem.

why do they go inside the electric kettle though???? sick of drinking anted coffee

They need water and if you are in a dry place your kettle is probably the place for them to get it. So if you do the ant traps above, use oil instead of water.

[tom yum goong]

boric acid chalk is great. you can buy it in most supermarkets.

drawing lines/circles around where the ants appear from works a treat.

Of course you need to combine this with making sure there are no crumbs or other food lying around.

[Farma]

bina

Some furniture shops carry a range of hard plastic saucer type items designed to put the legs of your table etc in. I've seen them for sale in the markets too.

These have a dry place in the middle for the leg with a moat around the outside for the water.

Your furniture legs don’t get wet and the ants can’t cross the moat.

Oops I see lingling beat me to a reply

Edited June 15, 2006 by Farma

[penzman]

My ant problem has been permanently solved by buying small traps at Tesco. The small plastic box is lime green, comes with a small pouch with tiny yellow pellets in it, empty the contents into the small box, ants bring it all back to the nest and they are all destroyed by carrying the stuff and by being exposed to it in the nest.

[thankuverybig]

yes,those little red bastards infested my bathroom towl once,& i only found out after drying myself.

i had ants in parts,where you really dont want them.

i got my revenge by spraying that anti bug stuff,all around the likely entry spots.

[phusingpete]

yes,those little red bastards infested my bathroom towl once,& i only found out after drying myself.

i had ants in parts,where you really dont want them.

i got my revenge by spraying that anti bug stuff,all around the likely entry spots.

I have found that the white chalk sticks work well.If you live in a house just draw a chalk line around the outside of the house and they will not cross it. This does need to be done quite regularly about every 5 minutes seems to do the trick. After a while they seem to give up or try elsewhere.

I quite enjoy spending the odd hour ant hunting, following their trails back to their lair then producing my spray can with it's long thin steel barrel and poking it into the nest and giving them a blast of the hard stuff." They don't like it up um captain Mannering sir" Sometimes if I find a particularly large or viscious specimen, after the kill I mount it on a polished wooden shield and hang it in my trophy room I also have some very grand photo's of myself with one foot on the kill with the spray can held proudly in both hands. A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go............... ..

[Ulysses G.]

My ant problem has been permanently solved by buying small traps at Tesco. The small plastic box is lime green, comes with a small pouch with tiny yellow pellets in it, empty the contents into the small box, ants bring it all back to the nest and they are all destroyed by carrying the stuff and by being exposed to it in the nest.

This is true ant genocide and I LOVE this product.

Only thing better would be blasting their whole nest with napalm and watching them run!

[phusingpete]

My ant problem has been permanently solved by buying small traps at Tesco. The small plastic box is lime green, comes with a small pouch with tiny yellow pellets in it, empty the contents into the small box, ants bring it all back to the nest and they are all destroyed by carrying the stuff and by being exposed to it in the nest.

This is true ant genocide and I LOVE this product.

Only thing better would be blasting their whole nest with napalm and watching them run!

I assume you are from the great U S of A.

[Ulysses G.]

My ant problem has been permanently solved by buying small traps at Tesco. The small plastic box is lime green, comes with a small pouch with tiny yellow pellets in it, empty the contents into the small box, ants bring it all back to the nest and they are all destroyed by carrying the stuff and by being exposed to it in the nest.

This is true ant genocide and I LOVE this product.

Only thing better would be blasting their whole nest with napalm and watching them run!

I assume you are from the great U S of A.

Semper Fi!

[Cent]

i have a serious problem with ants in my house- both the red biting bastards and the very tiny black ones. i have tried spraying and unabashed killing sprees... but nothing seems to get rid of them. they are in all my packaged food, in my kettle (and thus in my morning coffee), they crawl on my bed and bite me in the night, etc. any tips for getting rid of them?

Girlx,

I have had a battle with the ants for a while myself. Once I started using the plastic ant baits found in the pest aisle of the BigC, Makro, or Tesco shops I eventually won. These take a while to work, but are the most effective (and not unsightly as the chalk lines are to my eyes) way to win your battle against these little buggers. I've used the ant baits now for a couple years and rarely see an ant in the house. The bait is brought back to the nest and kills the queen I think. The ants then move on to better pastures. I use two or three baits in each room, more in the kitchen. Just place them in the corners of the room and wait a couple weeks. Soon there will be no ants around. Replace these baits every couple of months with new ones. I do also use the double bowl/water apparatus in the village. Problem solved.

Cent

[Cent]

bena,

"why do they go inside the electric kettle though???? sick of drinking anted coffee"

I've had this problem myself. You need to empty the electric kettle once you are finished using it for the day. The ants want the water, and seem to know exactly where to find it. :-) I've had a few mornings of ant flavored coffee. Now I empty the pot at night and refill it in the morning just before starting the kettle boiling.

Cent

[Cent]

A2396,

"The biting ones are referred to as Fire Ants there. The bite (s) can be dangerous, if you have an allergic reaction to them. Be careful,"

I may have an allergy to these bastards myself. Last weekend while up in the village one got on my arn and bit me good and proper before I got him off. These are the small red biting ants, which I believe are fire ants like in the states. I had a welt from this that eventually spead to be the size of three silver dollars. Took two days before the welt finally went away. Whatever it is they inject as a poison is pretty damned strong. I can't imagine getting bit by a bunch at the same time. It felt like someone had pressed a lit cigarette onto my arm. I've never had a reaction to insect bites before. Does anyone know what it is they inject with their sting?

Cent

[ilyushin]

There are small plastic bottles of ant powder available in supermarkets that work a treat. I ran a line of this powder along the edge of the inside walls, around my rubbish bin and wherever I saw the opening to a nest.

Bingo, no more ants.

Chalk-a-Mot

[Niloc]

In Australia we had a product called "Ant Rid" which was made of Borax mixed into something to attract the ants.

I made my own with honey, it works but takes a couple of days for the mixture to get back to the nest.

I have tried to buy Borax here in Pai but the pharmacy had never heard of it, I might try a larger place next time I am in Chiang Mai