Sugar ants invading my home - aaarrrggghhh !

[Mellymoo]

HELP !

I feel like I am going INSANE !:hair:

For the last couple of weeks, I have been getting sugar ants in our home. Now let me tell you, I have a VERY clean home and seeing these disgusting creatures makes me feel sick, makes me feel like I have a dirty home.

It all sort of started with this awful heatwave we have been having. They started off in the kitchen - on the benchtops, on the floor, in the pantry. Got rid of them.

Then they moved into the toyroom (ain't no food in there for them !)

Today I was sitting on the lounge watching telly and felt something crawl up my arm - yep, it was those sugar ants - yuch ! They were all over the lounge.

EVERY DAY I vacuum and mop the floors to try to avoid more ants coming in. I am constantly checking cupboards, the pantry - everything all day long. I wipe the benchtop down with disinfectant all the time, I am always on my hands and knees checking for more ants in corners etc - but they come in, in different spots.

I can't find their 'nest' as such, and they don't seem to be coming in through any gaps I can see (windows, under doors etc)

I use flyspray when I see heaps of them, but having a 6 and a 2 year old, naturally I don't want to use that all the time.

I'm hoping when a cool change comes, the ants will disappear, but have you had this problem ? How did you get rid of them ? Nothing I seem to be doing is working.:hissy:

[codswallop]

im having the same thing
at the moment im trying a spray of lavendertea( just boile dup lavender bush) with white vinegar and a little tea tree oil
it seems to be helping.......

[Blueberry Crumble]

It must be that time of the year, cause we have them too! I cant find where they are coming from either :(

[Teegzie]

I have them everywhere too! :hair:

So far I've tried lavender oil, fly spray, ant sand, ant baits, vinegar... they just keep coming!

What's worse is our lawn is filled with them, so I can't let DD play outside because she gets eaten alive! :thumbsdown:

[SmileyBJ]

:hair: Here too...

Got someone to come and spray yesterday and there still crawling everywhere!!

Have tried everything. Found them yesterday all through my boxes of tissues, and packet of SALT! :confused:

[SpottySocks]

Yep here too!!!!

We are using Ant Rid (about $4.50 from the hardware shop) & at least it is keeping them out of our food!

Last weekend we found them in the pantry so got a pack of Ant Baits from the supermarket which the ants ignored! Got Ant Rid the next day and at least they were going for that rather than our food. After a day and a night they were gone so we cleaned up the sticky patches from the Ant Rid & hoped that was the last of them! Then this morning DH saw a few in the bath (no food there why??) so he put some Ant Rid down and 20 minutes later it was swarming with ants and has been all day, decided to leave them too it and gave the the kids a shower tonight. DH has just found them in a cereal box in the pantry again so have cleared off that shelf and put more Ant Rid down.

I don't think it matters how clean your house is they will just keep on coming. The theory behind the Ant Rid is that they take it back to the nest and poison the whole nest - apparently they eat the dead ants so thats how the Ant Rid poisons the whole nest. Not sure if this is true as we've got them back again! But maybe it's a different nest - we did have a week free!

Only trouble with the Ant Rid is you have to put up with them swarming to get to it and you have to make sure it is out of the kids reach too.

[Milliner]

We have them too. I get up of a morning and take on the invasion of ants! Nothing is working for us, they just keep on coming!

[Kangaskippy]

Ant rid works wonders...we use to get the ants at our farm house and they were shocking...just put some antrid out on some aluminium foil or a bottle lid, top it up when they eat it a couple of times and they disappear...brilliant stuff...we also use it in the car...(DS drops crumbs everywhere and in places you can't always see/find easily...and this stuff gets rid of them fast)

best of luck

[Kangaskippy]

Only trouble with the Ant Rid is you have to put up with them swarming to get to it and you have to make sure it is out of the kids reach too.

I place it up away from little hands or overnight when the kids were in bed...

[LilShenanigans]

we have been having issues with ants and other small bugs, and it's just the weather.

I tracked the worse lot down to how they were coming in, so I had to block their access.

We have issues with stuff in the bathroom, theres an area in the wall that seems like a comfy little home. So I sprayed the entire wall (since I cant get inside) with the DIY outdoor awesomeness(tried so many other things!), and only a few have ventured out to die. Bathroom is probably for water, whereas the other one was def the food hunting ants :rolleyes:

[ElizaDoLittle]

Me too! I had them ALL through my knicker drawer! Actual ants in my actual pants! That was the last straw so I called the pest guy and he said its the weather and there is really very little you can do about them (and they chose my undie drawer because they actually eat elastic! :eek:)

[cja]

We had them bad last year and they are through two big bags of disposable nappies I had bought on special and stored in the cupboard!

Tried lots of home remedies, talc powder is pretty good, but they just came back in different spots until we had them proessionally sprayed.

[DivinelySophistimicated]

I HAVE THE ANSWER!

I'ts called "Crawly Cruncher", you get it from coles...its about $8 for a big spray bottle, its white with a black and red label....

I sprayed this in my sliding door tracks, window sills, around the floor of my pantry and around the kitchen cupboards on the ground....Have not seen ants in 4 days so far and we had them everywhere, toyroom, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and even on the back deck...

[codswallop]

I HAVE THE ANSWER!

I'ts called "Crawly Cruncher", you get it from coles...its about $8 for a big spray bottle, its white with a black and red label....

I sprayed this in my sliding door tracks, window sills, around the floor of my pantry and around the kitchen cupboards on the ground....Have not seen ants in 4 days so far and we had them everywhere, toyroom, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and even on the back deck...
why diddnt you post this before i did my shoping today!!! :)

[Mellymoo]

Glad to know I'm not the only one that has them !!

I'm waiting for someone to call me back from a professional pest removal company, but they'll probably tell me it;s the weather and they can't do anything about it !!

Yesterday I got excited because I didn;t see any in the kitchen when I got up, but then later on I saw some in the toyroom, in really obscure places like in the lego box, in DD#1's foldup Barbie lounge etc. Then I saw them in the pantry on the outside of a box of dried fruit......cleaned all that up, then I saw them on the foot of our lounge - nothing there to eat !!

I feel like I'm going crazy !!

Hopefully I'll find the solution soon LOL !!