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The last couple of days the house has been invaded by little black ants and they're everywhere!  Some are no bigger than specks but there's a lot of them roaming over the tile floors, especially at night.  They're ignoring my ant baits (Terro liquid) and I don't know what to do.  For health reasons, I'm worried about spraying or laying down powder and don't want the cat ingesting toxins either; she would pick up the chemicals on her paws. 

 

Please, does anyone have a solution or Is there a professional I could call in to fix this (preferably English-speaking)?  Can't stand it much longer... 

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Pour some corn syrup on an index card

Add borax, enough to mix in thoroughly but not super-saturate it

Stir it together…

…and then they come

It’s a little freaky when they’re all having their ant party, but within a day, the ants will be gone!

They eat the corn syrup, the borax kills them, and if all goes well, they’ve taken quite a bit back to the colony and then they leave you and your kitchen alone.

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I have the same problem. Every single room. It would take index cards everywhere in my house. Can't find any nests and spot killing them or spraying their trails with Raid just makes them change routes. 

I share the OP's question:

Is there a professional who can handle a whole house infestation of "sugar ants" without doing possible harm to our pets?

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My buddy, an exterminator NOB, says that they live outside and enter to find food. They return to their nests outside. He sprays the perimeter of the houses at ground level with extra amounts at their entrance points if found.

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I had the same problem. I happened to mention it to the owner of the cremeria where I shop. He pulled out a tube of this stuff and said that's what he uses and said all the other vendors in this mercado do also. I bought it at an agri-chem place here in PV but I suspect many hardware stores would also carry it, $120. You inject a little on the feeding stations and place them around. Our condo is now ant free and when I see the bait is gone I just inject a little more. Give it a try.

 

 

antex.jpg

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Here's the formula to make the stuff:

Go to a hardware store and buy boric acid, a white powder.  (Acido Borico)

Go buy a small cheap bottle of pancake syrup.

Put the pancake syrup in a measuring cup and warm in the microwave.  Add 1 level tablespoon of Boric acid and stir in well.

Put the pancake syrup back in the original bottle and put 1 drop where ever you see the ants.

Wait!!!!

In a few days, they will disappear until a new nest moves in.

If you want to kill them on surfaces, Windex works well and is safe.  The syrup compound is also safe for humans and pets.  You find boric acid in a lot of foods as a preservative.

If you will take ammonia and put it in a spray bottle and spray all openings, the ants will not cross the ammonia lines.

The recipe for the boric acid is critical.  Put too much Boric in and the ants will die on the way back to the nest.  They have to return home and feed the queen to for this to work.

If you can find the nest, which will be in the ground outside and bait around it, it will work quicker or if you can find the trail and bait in it it will work quicker.  

 

 

 

 

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A small bottle 469 grams is what this one says

As long as you don't put too much boric in, it will work.  The object is to get it back to the nest.  The workers collect the food and feed the queen, killing her.

Ants have a short lifespan so when the queen dies, the whole place dies out.

It generally takes about a week to work.

The little bastards are impervious to insecticide.  I've sprayed them with everything over the years.  They seem to love RAID ant and roach killer.  You can spray a whole can on them and they survive.

Windex works good for a direct spray.  I think the soap drowns them.  

Boric acid is also good to kill roaches in powder form.  Just put it out where roaches hid and they will end up dead.

I live in Villa Nova and there is a vacant lot 2 houses down.  When I moved in, I was covered up with ants, so I've become an expert to survive.  There were several nests in the vacant lot and the ground was literally black with them.  I've slowly killed them off over the years but they just come back.

Ants leave a scent trail for the others.  If you spray ammonia around the house, they won't cross the ammonia but it wears off within a few days.  The only real solution is death by boric acid.

 

 

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1 hour ago, sem123 said:

On a safety note, don't put the mixture back in the syrup bottle, just in case someone grabs it for pancakes by mistake. Put it in a difference container and clearly make it in Spanish and English.

Even if you put it on pancakes, it won't really hurt you.  Not great for you but boric acid is used in a lot of foods for preservative.

I do mark the bottle

 

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On 2017-10-04 at 9:15 AM, pappysmarket said:

I had the same problem. I happened to mention it to the owner of the cremeria where I shop. He pulled out a tube of this stuff and said that's what he uses and said all the other vendors in this mercado do also. I bought it at an agri-chem place here in PV but I suspect many hardware stores would also carry it, $120. You inject a little on the feeding stations and place them around. Our condo is now ant free and when I see the bait is gone I just inject a little more. Give it a try.

 

 

antex.jpg

does not work .... i watch the ants walk on by this stuff.

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Haha, it's not supposed to kill them instantly, they take it back to the nest. It has worked wonders for us, within 4-5 days the only ants we saw were in different locations so just baited more traps.

YMMV

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8 hours ago, Al Berca said:

Let's try again. Anyone have an answer to the original question of recommending a fumigation service that deals with sugar ants without harm to pets? Thanks

When I lived in Albuquerque, I had a pest service in a couple of times and they sprayed.  The ants just ate the stuff and grew stronger.  

I really haven't found anything that works other than the baits.

My gardener sprays something for scorpions and wears a filter mask when he sprays.  When my gardener wears a mask, you can bet the stuff is not good for pets or humans.  Even that stuff doesn't seem to deter the ants.

The baits are harmless to pets.

Short of nuclear blasts, I don't think anything will kill the little buggers

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Cuidado with any poisons manufactured/used in MX!  There are virtually no health/safety regulations here, very little consciousness among the people of avoiding toxic substances.  I had a guy spray my kitchen once for roaches (even though I am very clean and tidy).  The bomba he brought had NO label on it!  Later I did have certain toxic exposure symptoms, not fun, can damage your kidneys.

I get all those little ants too, but only in the kitchen.  I keep a spritzer of white vinegar on the counter and spray when ever I see the ants, and it also helps keep the counter clean and shiny.  The ants also don't like cinnamon or peppermint, two pleasant scents that are completely non-toxic.  They also don't like salt, so I put that in the nooks and crannies on my counter.  I use boric acid on the floors to repel roaches and that seems to work well.  Never use toxic products inside your homes, best not to, even outside.

 

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I looked at a bottle of that insecticide sold here. It is deltametrina and Wikipedia says in the English equivalent:

Deltamethrin is one of the components most commonly used in the most widely used insecticides worldwide, and has become an element widely used by companies disinfestation and farmers.  This element is a member of one of the safest insecticide families, the synthetic pyrethoids. While for mammals, this insecticide is classified as safe, is very toxic to aquatic life, particularly fish, and therefore should be used with extreme caution around water zones.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltametrina

Information or wives' tales, your choice.

 

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2 hours ago, AngusMactavish said:

I looked at a bottle of that insecticide sold here. It is deltametrina and Wikipedia says in the English equivalent:

Deltamethrin is one of the components most commonly used in the most widely used insecticides worldwide, and has become an element widely used by companies disinfestation and farmers.  This element is a member of one of the safest insecticide families, the synthetic pyrethoids. While for mammals, this insecticide is classified as safe, is very toxic to aquatic life, particularly fish, and therefore should be used with extreme caution around water zones.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltametrina

Information or wives' tales, your choice.

 

While the pyrethoid family of insecticides is certainly safer than a lot of other insecticides, as you quote above, it is very toxic (actually fatal) to fish, also crustaceans, and some birds.  All my friend's fish in her inside fish tank died within hours of one of these pyrethoids being sprayed outside near her home. Same with a another friend's parakeet.

And just because one doesn't have any fish or birds, if you spray outside, the run-off, especially during rainy season, can enter streams, lakes, ocean water, etc.

Boric acid solutions, cinnamon, and other stuff which is completely harmless to all but the insects you are trying to get rid of work, so why not use them?

Also, as far as ants go, while they are bothersome, they don't carry disease, they clean up all the crumbs and other dead insect bodies, and I have found, over years of living here, that they have a cycle and that if you can calm your aversion to having them march through your house, they will totally disappear on their own to do whatever is next in their life cycle.

My neighbor told me he was killing all the geckos in his house cause he was sick of the gecko poo. A week later he was complaining about how awful the mosquitos were. I live right across the road and I had virtually no mosquitos. Personally, I try not to disturb the balance of nature, as everything has a purpose in the scheme of things. I do draw the line at cockroaches and scorpions in the house, but prefer the manual solution- a hard hit with a shoe. I've also had success just scraping down the ant nests I find with a shovel and pouring boiling water over them.

 

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