It's been raining pretty much non-stop for months here in eastern PA...

At least a shower every day, or every other day...
I can count on one hand, how many times I've seen the sun the last several weeks...

I'm guessing the water is driving the ants indoors, because for the first time since we bought our house 4 years ago, we're getting ants inside...
LOTS of them...

We've got the little black ants, and the humungo carpenter ants.


They are not into anything, they just seem to be wandering around lost or something...

I tried putting up signs to direct them back outside, but that hasn't worked...

I thought they'd eventually just go away, but it seems they've set-up shop in my basement now...
They (little black ones) are coming in under the poured concrete floor at the expansion joints...
I just dumped a half gallon of laquer thinner down the crack to see what happens...

When I was mowing the lawn the other day (between rain showers) I hit a big dirt mound of red ants...
I dumped a gallon of gasoline on them, so now they are gone. (Along with a 24" patch of lawn)

I had Erlich's out for a "free" estimate, and they qouted me $265 to "treat" the property...
This $265 treatment even came with a 2 month warranty !!!  How generous !  (Thieves)


The salesman said they can treat my property, but they can't be responsible if insects move in from my next door nieghbor's house...

WTF are the chemicals for then ???

I'm damn near ready to build a moat around my property, and fill it with gasoline...

try diatomatous earth. It's ground up sea  shells basically. But the ants can't crawl through it.

My great-niece taught a nice trick to me.  Since the ants follow pheromone trails to food or moisture, you can disrupt them by removing the trail.  Rubbing alcohol works great.  If you see a line where then ants travel from their ant hill into your house, clean it with alcohol, then they'll stop following the trail for a while.  The ants won't travel that way until one of them stumbles back on the remaining part of the trail or the food at random.  It sounds too simple to work, but it does.  It won't get rid of them if they nest in the house, but it's great to keep them from traveling to/from food.z

Find the ant hill and pour an entire bottle of
409 inside. Yes the kitchen cleaning stuff.
No more ants! Problem solved!

Home made napalm

Well, I have been having the same problems.

Whats works well for me are the ant traps you get at home depot made by the company "Zep"
THey out all of the Raid company ant baits o shame.

Also, if you find where they are coming from outside and put like two of the Zep traps in ther path they will just go in the traps and go back home to die. Instead of going inside your home.

i live in a basement and just recently started having ants walking around...  i left a can of coke out all night and thought about drinking it when i woke up but decided against it.  good thing because when i poured it out there were a ton of ants inside the can.  little bastards.

Diazinon(sp?) is a great insecticide.  After spraying with it, lay down some boric acid (a white powder).  We had carpenter ants ( the huge black ones) in the walls at our cabin.  We did this and never saw them again.

I'll probably hit the Home Depot just up the road from me...

I've heard of "Zep" before, but it was cleaning supplies...

Doesn't matter to me where they die, just as long as they die...

The ant problem has turned into a centipede problem...
The Erlich guy said the "Thousand-leggers" are "Meat-eaters" and they feed on the ants...

I just about FREAKED the other night when I reached under my pillow to get comfortable, and pulled out what I THOUGHT was a large piece of fuzzy lint. (like what gets stuck in the end of your socks after they come out of the wash)
I threw the "fuzzy lint" on the floor and it started running away !
God-damn if it wasn't one of those friggin thousand leggers...
That sucker was FAT and easily 2" long...
I get the creeps just thinking about it...  

I use Windex glass cleaner to kill the ones I can see inside my house. I perfer using Windex especially around food prep areas because it not as toxic as those poisons, but kills them them on contact and all you have to do is wipe them away. I get the big economy bottle at the local Smart & Final store and fill my own spritzer bottle.

I know that HONEY attracts them:

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=9578[/img]

If moving the ant trail doesn't work, try moving the house (and as someone mentioned, don't forget to sanitize the area w/rubbing alcohol afterwards).

By the way, you say you've tried gasoline and laquer thinnner...seems a waste to use flammables if you're not going to add the key ingredient.

cynic

ant's wont cross borax or even just plain old white chalk, if that helps. I heard mix borax into sand and then rub it into the cracks in your sidewalk or wherever they coming from and that will get rid of them.

I wasn't sure how to spell it either, but I agree completely.  Buy a bag of this stuff.  It comes in a bag and spread it around your house by the foundation.  Pour it on the ant hills.  I used some last weekend and no more ants.  We've had some huge ant hills lately.  They are now gone.

Second that! Boric acid will also do the job on roaches.

Boric acid indoors and - get this - coffee grounds outside. Heard it on some morning show doing an organic gardening piece thing a few years ago and, since I usually brew up several gallons a day anyway [coffee], I had plenty to spare. Dumped it up against the side of the house where they were coming in from for a few days running and they were done for the season.

Apparently, the lightweights can't handle the caffeine content. [Doc Holliday]Poor things are just too high strung. [/DH]