Ants are in your house because they have found and still find a food and/or moisture source and there is a trail for them to follow, so you need to do a really good cleanup using a cleaner with either lemon oil or peppermint oil in it (these are supposed to hide that trail) and then lay down a barrier of lemon oil or peppermint oil and slowly push the wee buggers back outside. While moving them back outside locate where they are coming in and once they have been moved out plug those.
There is no reason to poison ants, as long as they stay outside and do the work they are supposed to do out there.

Kimmsr,

Thank you for your response. I have tried lemon oil already because I use that normally whenever I clean my bathrooms. I will see if the peppermint will work better.

I have had some success with closing off their holes but I do have a lot of holes in my house apparently. Even if you remove the scent trail they leave the scouts will find whatever they were coming for again and lay it down again. I can't really remove the toilets which in one case is where they are coming in for. We don't really have ant trails coming in for anything except the water but we have many many wandering scouts just looking for a food/water source. My husband has to get up to take pills in the middle of the night and the ants decided to eat the coating the other day. He got a mouthfull of ants in the middle of the night. Talk about an unhappy person!

My husband is pretty upset about them & has purchased Raid which is nasty. That is why I made up my own spray. If I don't deal with the situation he will go get something really toxic.

Also IGRs are totally nontoxic for all mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. There is some aquatic toxicity but they are also fairly targeted, because they are not sprayed, so that only the ants which are taking the baits should be impacted.
Finally, the ants are not part of the native ecosystem (kind of like house mice). The conspicuous ants we should have in this area are primarily harvester ants. If they where natives and not strikingly out of balance in terms of their population size I would be most willing to try more discouraging techniques. I am already using tanglefoot around the bases on some of my larger plants but I can't do them all.

If there was another product that was just as effective as the IGR but with 0 toxicity I would jump on it.

Has anyone made their own IGR sweet ant baits?

Kate

Are you certain that Precor (methoprene) and Nylar will even work for ants?

Anyway, have you tried the commercial boric acid bait stations? I've found them quite spectacular in their success. They even manufacture one that can be used outside.

Rhizo,

According to what I have read (online) either the Precor or the Nylar would work for the ants although they are normally marketed for cockroaches & fleas.

Have you actually had luck getting rid of whole colonies with the boric acid baits or just suppressing them enough that they keep out of the house. I have been doing homemade boric acid for about 8 weeks & I have seen a small reduction in numbers. I also have created some homemade outdoor bait stations close to their nest which they are gobbling up. Do you think it might take all summer with this bad of a problem. I don't mind waiting for the results as long as I know its working.

Is there some advantage to the commercial baits as opposed to the DIY ones besides ease?

Thanks,

Kate

However, while looking for info about Precor and Nylar, there's no mention of mixing the product with jelly.

In other words, such a use isn't legit.

Further, homemade boric acid mixes are a so-so fix. The reason is that you won't get the desired result if it's too strong, or too weak.

Oh yes, about your husband's pills. Keep them in a tight container until it's time to take it.

Jean,

You are right that there is no mention of mixing it with jelly. Usually it is used as a spray which gets on the insects and then they clean themselves & take it into the nest.

It is not a recommended use as far as I can tell but they do mix these same chemicals into the fat & grain based baits for fire ants. I am trying to basically replicate the fire ant baits for sweet loving ants. I was just hoping someone had tried this before me & could let me know how it works
There used to be a sweet ant bait with IGR called Pharoid on the market but it has been cancelled.

It seems worth a try anyway if I can't get the boric acid to work effectively. I will try the commercial boric acid baits first though.

I know my sweetie's pills should go in the bottle but he is basically asleep when he takes them. We put them in pill keeper finally but it definitely didn't help my campaign against the nastier pesticides ;-).

Thanks everyone for your responses. I will keep checking back to see if anyone else chimes in or if you folks have more advice.

Kate

Kate, I've found that the homemade versions of many pest-control products just aren't nearly as efficient as the commercial stuff.

My personal experience with the little boric acid bait stations was inside. We put one in the laundry room, where they seemed to congregate and another one behind the toilet. Within just a few minutes, ants were visiting the trays....and after an hour I was HORRIFIED at the swarming of ants!

I wanted to toss the trays out right then and there, but Robert made me keep them in place, lol! Within a matter of just a few hours, they stopped coming back for the sweet gel and I never saw another ant after that.

Terro is the name of the manufacturer of the product that I used.

Odorous house ants are native to the United States, so thinking if you "just wait the native ant species will come back in & compete with them" is mistaken. This species contains multiple queens in each colony, and employs a "budding" response to environmental stressors - i.e., sprays, organic or otherwise. So you risk spreading a colony into many smaller colonies in multiple locations. I have seen cinnamon employed as an effective barrier, but on a house-sized scale, this may not be economically feasible. Baits are generally effective if used with some patience and consistency.

hire a professional ... to treat the foundation of the house... and then close up the house ..

personally.. i draw the line when mother nature invades my house... or attacks me or the kids ...

ken

kate_rose, you can do it; but it does require patience and mental stamina.

For many years, "Terro" was the most effective bait that I could recommend for 'sweet-loving' ants inside the home. Then the owners of the process appeared to have a falling out. For a long time the product was unavailable; then it appeared under the original name - and a number of others. I no longer could recommend it. A lot of commercial applicators relied on us. Credibility was a precious trait.

Another factor to bear in mind is that some ants alternate between a 'protein' diet and a carbohydrate diet. I do not know if the species with which you are dealing belongs to this group. (How quickly I forget, these days). "Maxforce" puts out some very good baits for roaches; I do not know about their products against ants.

But, back to basics! "Hydramethylnon" was very effective against fire ants outdoors; and I would venture to say that if there is an indoor ant bait containing the product, it will work for you indoors - while you take care of the outside. If you are wary (and we all ought to be) of chemicals, then the self contained traps are best. If you are paranoid about chemicals (medical conditions justify this) use sticky traps. There are 'motels' (for roaches) or even glue traps for rodents. Lure your pests by placing an attractive sweet substance therein. Do not forget to throw them out after a while. My own pet (purposely misspelt) theory is that, if effective, these devices exude the 'scent of death' and will repel prospecting guests.

Make quite sure that no! none!! nada!!! (is that enough emphasis?) vegetation touches the outside wall, eaves or roof of your house. Pruners, loppers saws (chain or hand) are indicated. After that would be the time for the caulking gun, mesh and "Great Stuff" . If these all make sense to you, then you will understand that exclusion is one of the first principles of insect and disease control.

To complete the exclusion concept, apply a chemical barrier all the way around the base of the exterior walls of the house, follow the vertical and top horizontal edges of doorways. Apply twice to the thresholds. Again, the chemicals range from the benign aromatic oils like peppermint; to the residual pyrethroids. The garage and its door present a challenge. Deal with it as best as you can; but pay closest attention to the doorway(s) that allow access to the interior of the house.

Please bear in mind that: "There is no safe chemical; only safe ways of using chemicals." Secondly, "The danger is in the dose."

Life is short. Make it pleasant. Follow the label .

There, I think that you are done - for now! Repeat all the treatments as stated on the label; or as certain circumstances dictate. All chemicals break down over time. Heat and light accelerate the breakdown. Rain further dilutes the concentration.

Finally, writing this has been quite enjoyable for me. I trust it is useful to you - in equal measure.

Just to add more to this 7-1/2 year old post I can only reaffirm what I originally wrote on May 22, 2008, ants come into houses in search of food and can be deterred by careful cleaning and barriers of peppermint oil or lemon juice. Both must be the real stuff, however, since the synthetic versions do not work. Perhaps this article might be of some use.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin/aodorous.html

Just be sure that one understands that the poisons sprayed in the house that are supposed to deter ants and other insects can also be very detrimental to human health.

kimmq is kimmsr

To add to this something that for some reason no one has said: insect growth regulators don't kill. They just slow/stop reproduction one way or another, generally by preventing eggs or larvae from maturing. I keep reading here about poisoning the ants with IGRs but it doesn't work that way.