ants in the kitchen - how do I get rid of them?

I won't kill them, but they're not welcome. They're small, so not carpenter ants. Any advice on how to make them go away?

Wonder why no one replied to your post? :D

I won't kill them either, usually they disburse on their own after a while. They're annoying but harmless. If I keep the counters clear there's nothing for them to feast on.

A friend of mine told me her grandmother kept a saucer with sugar water on the counter and that attracted the ants to one place. I tried it and it worked pretty well.

Hope your ants have disbursed too.

A.

Yeah, you're the only reply! Yup, the ants dispersed. Thanks!

I'd have replied if I'd ever found anything that really worked! They go under & around the ant baits, seem to ignore that sticky liquid bait also... Ortho "Home Defense" spray seems to work pretty well, but I'm limited in where I can spray it (kitty & kid), so I use it on the door threshhold and around the inner rim of plant pots, that sort of thing. We pretty much just put up with them if there are just a few around... never seem to quite get rid of all of them in the morning room, because of all the plants in there.

i actually have had great success with ant baits (but only name brand ones; not cheaper--tried both).
and like Amanda said, if i keep my kitchen counters clean it also helps.

I had ants for two years in my kitchen each summer. We battled them for a long time. We finally found where they were coming in: behind the dishwasher. Then, they quit coming and haven't had them since. So, I guess you need to find out where they are coming in. Just thought I would tell you how we finally got rid of ours.

Thank you birder! I hadn't thought of that one!

Your welcome! I hope you find them.

Birder - that's a good call. This is an old house that we are renting. You can see daylight through the cinder block foundation from inside the basement for God's sake. :/

I know people who would think I'm crazy (wouldn't dispute that), but I have followed ants for hundreds of yards to figure out where they're going! Fascinating. If you've ever heard of E.O. Wilson you might not think I was that crazy. He started his career by studying fire ants. ;)

A.

p.s. With the heavy rains we've had lately the ants come up looking for dry land. I left a bowl from dinner last night in the sink - fell asleep before I could get to it. This morning I had ants, dozens maybe, but I just shooooed them away and removed the dish. They're still trying to figure out where it went, but they'll be gone by the end of the day. If I keep the dishes cleared and the sinks and counters clean (really hard for me, but I'm working at it!) there's just nothing to interest those poor ants coming from 8 houses down the street. Some days this ahimsa thing takes up a lot of time.

I consider that "stress" I don't need! There's enough stressors out there w/o having ants in your kitchen. They drive me nuts.
You must have a high heating and cooling bill.

Actually not too bad. I'm a stickler for energy savings. The upstairs is insulated pretty well and I have employed plastic over some windows and other weather-stripping things and such to guard against draft in particular.

The ants are problematic and stressful if I am in a rush. It's a double sink in the kitchen and they can have only one.

It's dumb I know, but ever since I saw "Honey I shrunk the kids" I haven't been able to look at an ant in the same way. :D

A.

I really can't say much nice things about ants, so I am not going to go there! :)

:)

Amanda, I'm impressed that you had the patience and focus to follow an ant for hundreds of yards!

We tried the liquid bait (Toro, I think?) earlier this summer, and it worked but took a week or so... be sure to put it right in their path.

Yesterday my neighbor mentioned that he used an in-ground version (stick it into the soil where you see ants; enough bait for 3 months on average) and got rid of big numbers of ants around the outside of his house. I'm going to try that! We have huge nests all over, and they get into all the plants and containers and get into the house also whenever they can. At least they're the tiny "sugar ants," so mostly they're just annoying.

SoFo - yeah, well. They are fascinating to watch. OUTDOORS. Very.

I know you all don't care, but here, famous Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson describes the ant vocabulary:

http://vodpod.com/watch/6463330-edward-o-wilson-order-out-of-chaos-ant-communication-world-science-festival


A.

I do care! Thanks for the link. Ants are fascinating, but still there are years when we're entirely overrun with them. Same with bunnies... when I see 10 or more of them in one circuit of the yard, then I know it's time to get out grandpa's trap and take a few for a ride in the country.

Having that problem with brown rats in the yard this year. Crows have displaced the hawks in the neighborhood. I preferred the crows to the hawks at my birdfeeders so I fed cracked corn. No overrun, have the hav-a-hart traps out there. Last week my BF bagged himself a possum. No rats.

not feeding birds at all which is a downer, but they don't need me this time of year anyway. If the critters get hungry enough, they will go for a ride like yer bunnies. :)

Yeah, I digress.

Ants back on the sink this week. They're bugging me, but you know where I stand.

Stay cool.

A.

Cool video!!

You guys, the ants are on the move again. I don't know their origin, but they are marching down the wooden steps from the back porch and waving their little white eggs as the head towards the next yard over. I didn't have to follow them very far this time, I just have to remember to watch where I step. :D

Wonder what happened to their nest? Recent big rain maybe? They don't generally move eggs unless the "nursery" is threatened (like almost any time I pick up an "empty" pot by my potting area).

That's what I was wondering. I haven't been moving anything around lately, and we haven't had flooding rain in days. I couldn't see where they were coming from exactly. Just passing thru under the back steps. The strangest things catch my eye, Critter - and those tiny white specks moving around on the steps . . . well they were just something I couldn't ignore. :D

I 'bait' empty pint-sized plastic cottage cheese containers, with white-sugar water. It keeps them voluntarily corralled, & out of the way. Replace these as needed.

When a kid I was very thin, & my mom sometimes gave me a hunk of cheese on the weekend between meals. Instead of eating it myself --though very hungry-- I would crumble it up --bit by bit-- and sprinkle it --little by little-- on an anthill (where my folks couldn't see what I was doing). I was *intrigued* by watching them pick up the pieces, sharing their strength to move the larger pieces!

I would have LOVED having an 'ant farm'!!! (:

2Q - sounds like my kind of party. :)

I just remembered another experience I had, a few decades after my 'ant parties', as AmandaEsq described them . . .

I was doing dishes, & kept hearing teensy, tiny, little 'snapping noises'. Eventually I got to looking around, & discovered that there was an ant trail up into the cupboard, & into the box of CORN MEAL. Well, the ants were eating it, and presumably the moisture in their bodies caused the 'CM' they'd eaten to expand, & that was 'popping' their tiny bodies! As an experiment, I took the 'CM' outside & sprinkled it all over & around an anthill of the same variety of ants. When I checked it later (not sure how much time had gone by), the tiny ants had been replaced with much larger ants . . . ants that pinch HARD! They had apparently taken over the nest when the other ants had all exploded! (I wished I hadn't done that, as the tiny ants didn't pinch as hard as those big ones!)

I live in the desert, & when it is very very dry, ants often come inside looking for water! In that case, it doesn't matter HOW clean you might keep your home---You have to keep it TOTALLY DRY too!

This message was edited Jul 24, 2011 2:05 AM

This message was edited Jul 24, 2011 2:06 AM

I've tried sprinkling grits or corn meal around to get rid of ants, never seemed to work for me (maybe our local ants are too small to eat the bits). I hear you on trading one pest for a worse one... took a small groundhog for a ride in the country once, and his hole was taken over by a huge groundhog & his missus!

:D

Live in Chickens. Works pretty well for me.

Can't seem to get rid of 'em, so I put out some of the extra hummingbird water yesterday afternoon, and this is what I found this morning.

AmandaEsq
Yup that is what you will see, BUT the ants now have a scent trail to where the dish is/was, When you have ants in the house 1 or 2 they are scouts and they put down a scent trail for the others to follow. wipe down any areas around them with detergent water or windex. Look where you always see them and see if you can follow their trail, it will usually go behind a wall or floor crack/molding. They can fit through a hole the size of fork tine. check foundations outside also. We were overrun with them when we moved into our rental property (tenent didn't report) had to pull 4 ft of siding off the entire house and spray with Bayer super termite and ant spray over the walls also did foundation and 1 ft out from side. have had no ants...no earthworms were in clay next to house. No problem yet-2 yrs

All of mine here in Montana are incubating under rocks so I bring my chickens and turn over rocks and voila not even babies. I need to watch the ant movies because I so enjoy watching the chickens feast on ant nests!

I love these stories!!! Thanks for the entertainment! I gotta take notes for the advice.

Harper

Thanks, daddie - yes I know they leave a trail. That's why the tray of sugar water is right underneath the spot where they come over the formica countertop behind the sink. We rent this house. You can see daylight between the cinder blocks in the basement. I have no reason to believe that the landlord will ever attempt to seal the cracks in this house.

We also have exotic pets - avian and reptile. Therefore, and for other ethical moral and equally insipid and crazy reasons, I will not place poison or traps or spray for ants or other critters. Most are easily captured and transported to the outdoors (i.e. spiders if necessary, moths, other flying or crawling critters). The only insect I don't mind smacking is the mosquito or any parasite that preys on me or mine.

The ants seem to be enjoying their water trough and the line streaming to and fro is constant, except at night. They are no longer on my counters or in my sink in the kitchen or in the adjoining bathroom, so I consider this a huge improvement.

A.

I've found that cornmeal works to get rid of small ants and uncooked grits work for fire ants and the large black ants. Just sprinkle it on their runs or if you can locate it; the nest or hill. This has worked in Texas, Indiana and now in Maine.
It might help to have a water source nearby, so that they can have a drink after partaking the meal. Hope this will help those of you who don't want to share lodging with them.
P.S. The chickens do work miracles, don't they!

I have found 2 solutions that work for me. For inside I put a couple of mothballs under the sink and behind the dishwasher where mine were coming in. Just make sure you open the box very carefully or the bag will explode open like it did for me. The other solution is for outside. Plant some peppermint, just remember they can be invasive plants so keep them in their own bed or put them in a container in the ground. Neither of these kills the ants just drives them away.

Hmmm. I am more than irritated with the critters. They are trying my patience for sure. :/

REALLY COOL today though, I saw some red ants - pretty large ones - climbing down a wrought iron hanging hook to the hummingbird feeder which I happened to move yesterday to a spot more protected from the sun.

The ants were amber colored and drinking heavily. Their bodies were full of liquid and they were actually transferring liquid to one another by mouth. There weren't very many, but it was fascinating to watch. Fortunately for the hummers, I have more than one feeder.

Writing this reminds me that I have to go out to see if the ants have gone so I can move it back to the ant-less location.

~Ant Amanda