OK, so we built this house a few years ago, never had an ant or any bug issue for that matter, like this year... This year we are infested with ants, so in the beginning of the season my wife called and had the exterminator come out, no change, if not its worse, then he came again...
He said that leaves under the porches is an issue, so I got under all 4 porches and took out all the leaves {there is lattice on them so all 4 porches was maybe half of a kitchen garbage bag of leaves... I cleaned all the leaves, made sure to vegitation was touching the house anywhere, and he came bag with gel and spray and traps of some sort... STILL HAVE ANTS even after his $600 treatment!!! So he came back and said, "WOW I dont know you must have a nest in the house", he searched everywhere and put down more poison... Still have ants after a week so they refund me my money and tell me they can't help, blameing the restrictions on poisons they are aloud to use....
OK, so I am not moving or building a new house and I am not living with ants crawling on me while I sleep...
So I call a friend of mine who knows everything, he says "Ill come over tonite and check it out", he is a landscaper by trade...
He comes over and looks around, I have an old wood pile about 300ft from my house, he walks over to it and kicks a piece of wood, thousands of ant in there.. " you got any gas" he said, I put a call into the fire dept and 5 minutes later the wood pile is an inferno... So I said you think that will do it, he said "nope" {hes a man of few words}..
We hop in my truck and go down to his brothers store, pick up a bag of powder, some "liquid traps", and some gallon jugs of vinegar. Cost me $38.00
We put the vinegar in a garden pump sprayer and he soaked the cement around my house, the door ways, under the sills, eve, ect all around and under the porches, we sprayed everything with vinegar, 3 gallons LOL!!!! You could smell it from the driveway, he said we didnt need that much but better safe than sorry, I guess the ants wont pass the vinegar, but the bad thing is the ants already in the house wont leave... SO then he gets this powder called Dietomacious Earth which is made from shell fossils and food grade {well the package says that, not sure who eats this stuff}, he said it is harmless to me my family and animals but it pokes holes in ants and other bugs skeletons...
So we put this powder around the house, then under sinks, near toilets, sprinkle this stuff everywhere the ants will go because they can not go outside for water anymore due to the vinegar...
Next we put out these Terro liquid baits, behind the 4 toilets in the house, under the 8 sinks in the house, near the sliding doors, ect I put down about 20 of these things...
Well that was a week ago and the only ants we have now are dead ones, them terro bait things are incredible, I would look at them and they were full of ants, then I would look later and they were empty, so I called him and said "the ants go in there drink it all up and then leave, they don't die" he replyed "oh, they die, then their friends eat them, then they die, then the queen dies".. Sure enough it works, they go in the little box, drink up the secret juice, stumble off onto their colony and die...
So now at the beginning of the year we have to spray vinegar so they dont come in and put a couple baits out for the season just in case...
I figured I would share this in case anyone else has been plagued by ants this year because of all the rain...
