Ants everywhere! - any advice?

I'm hoping some of you might be able to help me (well actually my mother) out here. Her kitchen is covered with ants. For the last few weeks there has been hundreds of ants running around the kitchen, and more recently the flying ones have been there too. She's tried various different products - gels, powders etc but nothing seems to work.

I was wondering if anyone has had a similar problem and was able to get rid of the ants altogether. Killing them seems to be a waste of time as more and more just keep coming.

Thanks in advance.

Lots of powder on the periphery of the wall and along anywhere they might be coming in through - e.g. if you've a vent leading to outside. Loads of powder along outside wall as well. It doesn't happen overnight - takes about 3 days but it works. If you do a search, something should come up about it as well.

My mother had the exact same problem..She tried the powder and the gel .She became obsessed with making sure every single solitary crumb and tea ring on the worktop was cleaned before going to bed.
The final straw was one morning when the kitchen worktop was covered in ants.....
She patiently followed the trail of ants under skirting boards,into various rooms and out to the garden where she found the nest.

Once the nest was destroyed they were never seen again.

Hi there
My parents experience the same problem and as mentioned the Nippon/Nipon powder does work. They come up through cracks in cement at wall edges etc and that's where you need to put the powder. Put plenty of the powder down and leave it there for a few days.
Trust me I've tried the boiling water but this only works on the ones you can see and won't get to the source of the problem.
Best of luck, they're a bit freaky when they start flying but you will be able to get rid of them. (though they will be back next year!)
S.

Find the nest and they wont be back next year

where can you get the powder?

call in the experts. Ants are around for millions of years and will probably be around long after us, not so easy without expert advice to get rid of them...

legend99 said:

call in the experts.

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JohnnyBoy said:

where can you get the powder?

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That "pound" shop in Moore Street (currently closed for rewiring but should be open again soon it it's not already) sells it for €2 a go.

Powder also available from Woodies.

legend99 said:

call in the experts. Ants are around for millions of years and will probably be around long after us, not so easy without expert advice to get rid of them...

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Unless there has been an advancement in the world of Ant extermination dont bother calling in the experts.
My mother called the "experts" and was quoted a huge price,and was told no guarentee would be given that the house would be Ant free..


As I dais above we found the nest..Scalded it with water,dug it out and eliminated the problem....

Rather drastic step but we found that they were coming up around tiny holes at the back door in the kitchen. As we had, on two previous summers, what could only be described as flying ant nests erupt, I sealed all the holes around the door saddle with clear sealer. It helped the situation. Putting the ant powder on the ground around the outside and inside of the house helped also.

This key post on Ants might give some further advice.

ZEGAR said:

As I dais above we found the nest..Scalded it with water,dug it out and eliminated the problem....

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Talk about putting your own advice on a pedestal!

The ants around the outside of our house keep diggint the sand out from under/between the cobble lock in the driveway.

I had them earlier this year. I used the powder, the spray and the gel. Not on me you know....this seemed to weaken them. We have since purchased a thingy that you plug in the wall that emits a clicking sound that insects don't like, I think we got it in Woodies. It took about 10 days but we have not seen an ant since.

I think Lidl or Aldi are selling sprays at the moment,

REgards,

Liamog

We get ants every year. The area we live in has sandy soil and they love it because its easy to excavate. Like ClubMan I get up to little mounds of sand on the patio every morning. I sweep it back down the cracks in the hope that they'll give up eventually but its like groundhog day! I get up in the morning...

I used the gel in the house. It's important to leave it alone once you see the ants feeding. When you don't notice any activity around it any more, wash it off with a disinfectant because the ants cop on to the fact that its a killer and mark it! Put down fresh gel in a different area in their path. Eventually you'll see big black ants feeding, these are the soldiers who protect the queen. They have to come out as you've killed the workers and the queen still has to be fed. When you kill these (by which time you'll feel like a mass murderer) you'll see tiny baby ants because the queen just keeps producing in order to preserve the nest. Once the babies are gone, the queen dies. Fascinating creatures really.

If you see flying ants you should kill them immediately as some of these fly up in the air to mate. When mated, drop to the floor and begin building another nest. I wouldn't wait for the gel or anything else to work on these.

The sprays are good but if it rains outside its rendered ineffective. There used to be a spray on the market which was safe to use indoors and it left an invisible film on skirtings and floor. Anything that walked over it died and it lasted for weeks. Haven't seen it on sale this year.

The ants become immune to the gel so this year I've bought an ant trap in woodies and it worked a treat. From writing this I've realised that I know far too much about ants for my own good........I'll have to get a hobby!!!!

liteweight said:

I'll have to get a hobby!!!!

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Thought you had one - AAM?

Thanks for all the advice. I think we're just going to have to do as Zegar suggested and find the nest and destroy it. Even the thoughts of doing it is making me itch - I can just see them running everywhere but if it means getting rid of them it will be worth it.

Hel_n said:

Thanks for all the advice. I think we're just going to have to do as Zegar suggested and find the nest and destroy it. Even the thoughts of doing it is making me itch - I can just see them running everywhere but if it means getting rid of them it will be worth it.

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That'll only work if there's only one nest. Plus make sure you get all the eggs because if you don't, and there's another nest somewhere, the ants from the 2nd nest will gather up the eggs from the first and take over their nest. As I said I've no hobbies.

Hi,

We seem to have a serious ant colony living under our house and garden....

From time to time they wander into the house, but to be honest, I think we have this part under control.

However I still would like rid of them... We were sitting out in the garden this evening and you know the way websites say "at certain times of the year the new winged ants leave the colony to mate..." well that was this this evening. It was like it was the middle of a war and they were all fighter planes leaving the homeland...!! Obviously enough that was the end of our time in the garden sunshine!!

The problem is that it wasn't just one exit they were using, they were about 30!! So I'm not sure how I would go about finding the nest (if there is only one, we reckon it must be the New York city of ant colonies!) because there seems to be so many of them.

I have used Nippon powder (which I bought in Tesco) and it kills the ones you get the powder on, but it's not really doing much more than that and I don't know whether I could live with all these ants forever more!!

Help would be much appreciated... Has anyone used an exterminator to a successful end?

thanks

Pheebs... you don't happen to live next door to me by any chance do you? because tonight they just came from everywhere & are in full flight around the place as I write! 'lil b*st*rds!