No doubt you have realized that we have had many an ant problem this year. We are at the end of our fight and I thought I would summarize what worked for us....because we tried nearly everything I think.
When you first find ants you are probably like me, you curse and then you try to kill them all. While this gets immediate satisfaction results it doesn't really solve the problem. We unfortunately did last what we should have done first. The very first thing you need to do is go outside your house and find out where they are coming inside. I found a line of ants going into the house in a crack under the brick. Beside that line was a line of ants coming out of the house. It was like grand central station. We closed up the crack with some spray foam and then searched for the ant hill. We weren't able to find it but if you do you can try these tips to get rid of it. If you don't want to get rid of it then you just need to protect your house from them finding another hole to get in. Try putting cinnamon around the base of your foundation.
We thought that sealing up the outside would solve the problem but it didn't. Ants were now coming into the kitchen from a different direction. So the next step is to find how they are getting into the interior of your home. We pulled out our stove and found a hole between the drywall and the tile floor. The ants were again pouring in and out of that hole. We used the spray foam again to seal the hole.
If you have ants walking around they aren't going to leave easily if you have sealed everything up. We found the easiest way to get rid of them was to vacuum them up.
The last thing you should do is figure out why they were coming into your house in the first place. For us I think it was because of the heat and because I wasn't cleaning up the food B threw on the floor fast enough. I admit that sometimes it would sit there from breakfast until I got home from work. Now I make sure to take those few extra minutes to clean it up each morning because that is far less work than having to deal with ants for weeks and weeks.
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HEHE I am glad you got your any problem under control. My ants are all gone too, don't know why, but I am not complaining! :)
ReplyDeleteFound your blog through Kelle's. Awesome post! We had an ant pandemic here this summer too! I started with the kill them all mentality, then mopped them dead with vinegar, and lined the periphery. They STILL managed their way in and so I decided to caulk them into the walls (I saw the space in the walls where the caulking had worn). I should have gone outside, I suppose, but caulking them in worked (& made me laugh a bit like a maniac!) I swear, I hate killing insects, but when pests invade my food space, I don't know what happens to me. . . At any rate, next time I'll follow your lead. (They haven't since returned, however!) And I'm also a Canadian!! Haha. XD Great blog. Following...
ReplyDeleteI also laugh like a maniac when I vacuum them up! I don't know why it gives me such satisfaction!
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