Invaders...YUCK!

When sweeping the floor after lunch yesterday I noticed some little, little ants. Hmm....wonder where they came from? I looked around and saw several more on the wall and followed the trail of ants across the wall into the family room. When they got to the bow window they followed the trim down to the window sill and across the sill to the other side. These ants are less than 1/4" long so are very tiny but I could sure see them as they trailed across my cream colored walls!

At the far side of the window they were going in and out a small crack in the trim where it meets the window. We had problems a couple of years ago with these little ants and finally had to call an exterminator and have not had any show up since then. At that time they were coming in and out of a crack in the window trim above the kitchen sink and were all over my counter tops. I had to have everything put in air tight containers and leave nothing on the counter tops or there would be ants in it.

I did get good results with the following product - Terro ant killer. We just had so many it would have taken years to get rid of them all this way so opted for the professional. Today I pulled out the ant killer stuff again and started using it. Will see if I can get rid of them on my own again first.

To use this product you put a drop of it on a piece of cardboard or foil and the ants love it. I used the macro setting on my camera to get a photo of all these ants bellying up to the bar. They carry it back to the nest and get the rest excited about the new source of food so they all want some too. The directions say it is just sugar and borax and is not supposed to be harmful to pets and people but would be careful if you have children or pets that might take a taste too.

This is what the 3 drops of the Terro liquid looked like after about 1/2 hour. You can see the ants are ringed around each small drop. With many ants eating you will have to replenish the drops and put more on each spot every so often.

I did use soapy water and washed the walls and woodwork off where the ants had been trailing. Ants will follow the sent trails of the ants before them so want to confuse them so they would look for the Terro spots of poison sitting on the window sill near where they were coming in and out instead. It worked.. soon after I saw ants gathering around to eat on the drops of Terro.

They may be enjoying their treat now....but just wait. My belief is they have the whole world outside to live they do not have to live in my house!

Lynn