Keeping ants out of your house-

[handymike]

I put cinnamon sticks in my kitchen cabinets and they’re gone pretty quickly.

 

[Doctor Damage]

This spring and early summer we had more fun with ants. First it was a bunch of bigger black ants, about 3/4" in length. They just kept showing up in the basement and I kept killing them one by one, but that's a losing battle. Eventually I explored outside to see if I could find gaps in the caulking at the bottom of the siding where it meets the concrete and lo and behold I saw a pile of dead ants at the base of the wall at one spot. There was a small hole in the caulking but large enough to admit them. I caulked it closed then went inside, pulled back the insulation in that spot (our basement isn't fully finished) and saw a ton of ants, so I got my mask and goggles on and sprayed the sh*t out of them. Problem solved. We got several more for another week, but was clear they were just survivors and we killed them one by one. Then they were gone.

A few weeks later we started getting smaller black ants, around 1/2" in length. Same problem. No clear evidence outside of intrusion, although I found plenty of small holes in the caulking (winter freeze/thaw, repeat each year). For some reason inside the basement I got a funny feeling about one section, so with mask and goggles I pulled back the insulation and yup, ants. I dosed them heavily with spray, and they poured out in terror and pain, and died, several dozen of them. I went outside and caulked every hole I could find, no matter how small, then sprayed again inside a couple days later. After that it was a game of killing the survivors one by one. That took longer than with the big ants, but it was accomplished.

Now the basement is ant free, we haven't seen one if a few weeks. Fingers crossed we're done for the year.

When the flowers and whatnot die back this fall, I'll get out and crawl around to see if there's any other holes in the caulking, etc, to be ready for next spring.

 

[Miss Moonlight]

My mom grew up in the 40s-50s in poverty, with ants, roaches, and rodents. That's how she knew to tell me about Boric Acid powder for ants and roaches. It's the only thing that worked, and it's the only thing that I've found works consistently. One can get the powder at drugstores and the like, in the pest control section.

Caveat: if you have pets or little ones, you need to keep this out of their reach. I'd used it to draw a line around the perimeter inside the house, all along the walls, being sure to get some into the creaks and crevices. When I had an apartment with a roach problem after the landlord had the neighbor's apt sprayed, I laid down a line of the powder everywhere my toddler could not get to it, and in cabinets, etc. It worked, and we no longer had roaches. It worked as well for ants after they decided one night to make an appearance in my hamster's cage- they loved his food. So I cleaned it up, cleaned him up, and put a line of boric acid powder around the where the table legs touched the ground. I saw them again once, near the powder, but this time they did not climb up and infest, and then I did not see them again. The stuff works.

Luckily, it usually comes in a big bottle with a directional nozzle, nowadays.
(Pic from Worthpoint of a 40s container of boric acid)

 

[Doctor Damage]

^ Good advice, thanks for posting. We use some white powder stuff for ants and I've got it in the corners, etc, and if they trod through it most of them don't last too long, but the boric acid sounds much more serious. We don't have kids/pets anymore so I will keep this in mind for next spring.

 

[Miss Moonlight]

FYI, it's usually packaged like this in the current era. This one's from Amazon, but I've found it at Walgreens, too.