Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, the annual spring passage in our house, the return of the Malodorous Ants to the kitchen, is in full swing. Last year, we tried all sorts of ant traps, ant bait and so on without effect. I wrote about it and one of my astute readers noted that they are probably malodorous ants and ant bait does not work on them. By the way, you can tell that they are malodorous ants if you squish one of them and it smells like Windex.
My wife has threatened to rip her hair out if we can not get rid of the ants, and for reasons I can’t really discuss here, that would not be a pretty sight. In fact, I would do almost anything to prevent my wife from actually ripping her hair out, so I decided some action on my part was needed.
This afternoon, on my weekend trip to the local hardware store, I picked up some Terro Ant Killer. The key ingredient, according to Kathie, is Borax. You see, the worker ants kill eat the sweet sticky stuff, which has Borax in it, and bring it back to their nest. Once there, they will feed the borax to the rest of the colony, which will die. That is the desired effect, killing all the ants so they don’t come back anymore. I don’t want to kill some of them, or most of them, I want them all dead. Dead, I say.
I’d say it is working. Muahaha. Muahahahahaha. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Generally speaking, I don’t like to wage chemical warfare on the insect population, but I can’t stand ants or anything else in my food preparation area, it skeves me out.
Update: The Terro ant killer really works. As of this morning (Monday) there are zero ants in the kitchen. That is about 36 hours after I put the ant poison out. My wife should be very happy right now.
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Keep us posted on how it works! I moved in to my house this winter, and the scattering of ant spikes outside, and ant traps inside, plus the little ants I’ve already seen in small numbers, indicates to me that I may have a real problem come late spring. I have traps out, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll be looking for more solutions.
Ok. I hate to be the comment hogger, but after your post I was really suspicious of this windex thing. I found one of those little ants in my house today, squished it, and damn if it didn’t smell like windex! I guess some terro is in my future….
Hi Jen,
That Terro stuff did the trick. The were only one or two ants running around this morning and by this afternoon, not one to be seen!
You can check their web site http://www.terro.com
I’ve never heard the windex test before. Interesting. I’ve had a few run-ins with ants too. I used a few applications of ant killer / repellent to the exterior. And then used a gap filler to block their entrances. I think that did the trick but we’ll see as things continue to warm up around here.
Hey Ethan,
The Windex test is a good one to remember. Last year I went around and caulked all the gaps in the block and siding. I thought I took care of everything until about a week ago. I don’t know where the little buggers came in, but they did.
BTW, how is the wordpress thing going? I switched to wordpress last year and I love it.
Hi there,
I just found your blog when I was looking for items on the Minnewaska fire. I have a house near you in High Falls. Yesterday, I noticed lots of ants crawling up the side of my house. I was wondering how to get rid of them before they find their way inside and I thing Terro may do the trick. I’ll try it an get back to ya.
Thanks neighbor!
Hi Eddie, you probably got the Terro at the same hardware store I did. It does seem to work great, but I noticed after about two weeks, I had another brief ant invasion. I think they where the hatchlings from the next. They disappeared in about a day. Since then, nothing.
I live in florida not in the woods just blocks away from the beach I have ants! Some are very little and they seem to have wings! Some one said they were white sox ants I can’t seem to find them on goole. they are in my bed in my kitchen and seem to go by the light. They may be coming from outside. Windows seem to have them every mornig I wake up, but there dead. lots of dead ones. Are there such a thing called white sox ants? please help.
I never heard of white sox ants. Perhaps you could call a local college or agricultural center?
Man, i wish id known about this in july when i had the biggest ant colony id ever seen in my and i used Clorox and Amonia in the basement keeping any animals upstairs until they were gone cause they caused my Cat to have hair missing cause of constant scratching, but i saw terro ant killer in BJ’S and i thought it was a no go but now i know thank you
Still now where i live i cant tell you how annoying these things are when their crawling all over your computer keyboard, lol my sister was screaming cause she found them in her room all over her perfume and i decided to go out and buy terro ant killer but they still keep coming >_<
They smell like Windex cause they have ascorbic acid in them. PEW! Honestly, the best thing we’ve discovered is to just get the pest control people out to spray around the perimeter of the house, and that way, the nests are destroyed and they don’t make it over the threshold… We still get a march-in every now and then, but a little spray and some extra swipes on the floor with cleaners do the trick. Good luck!!!
Terro is AWESOME, but does not work on “sugar ants”…..but on every other type, it wipes them out utterly. I tell everyone about Terro! Thank god for it.