<p>slightly OT, but my favorite ant infestation was a number of years ago. S2 was a wee baby and we were going to visit a relative in San Francisco who hadn’t seen him yet. I pop him in the car seat and head over the Bay Bridge…car dies on the incline…takes long while for AAA to come and tow my car (this was in pre-cellphone days)…wait at the mechanic’s while the car is worked on…turns out ants had infested my air filter!..mechanic cleans them out and car is good to go…I ask for the cost of the work…and he says they don’t really have a fee for ant removal, so no charge!</p>
<p>Terro is wonderful. Target and grocery store was out so I tried Lowes. The ants are acting like drinkers at an open bar right now. I hope they make it back home safely.</p>
<p>Okay–I introduced Terro here, which has always worked for me, but I think I have Terro-savvy ants. I’m trying to clean up my shore-ish house, cuz D and college grad friends are having “girls weekend” next week. (sigh–I hate missing a weekend down here.) </p>
<p>But, anyway, had a new infusion on my counter (ick) and put Terro down. They are walking on it, around it, next to it, but no one’s drinking! Whadda I gotta do–offer a happy hour?!</p>
<p>Use a hot and wet towel to wipe them out.</p>
<p>Then try this one: [Excel</a> Marketing 8150120 Ant Block: Amazon.com: Grocery & Gourmet Food](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Excel-Marketing-8150120-Ant-Block/dp/B000QDEQ7E]Excel”>http://www.amazon.com/Excel-Marketing-8150120-Ant-Block/dp/B000QDEQ7E)</p>
<p>You would never see ants on your counter.</p>
<p>I have lined the back of my kitchen counters and window sills with cinnamon. So far it seems to be working.</p>
<p>I was upgrading my computer this afternoon with my daughter (replaced one of the video cards that was 7 years old and added 8 GB of RAM so there’s 16 GB now). We were on the floor with the computer open and we saw a few ants. And a few more. And so on. So my son brought the vacuum and we sucked them up while trying to figure out why they were coming in. I then saw a pistachio nut with a bunch of ants on it - my penchant for eating pistachio nuts at my desk (next to a walkout basement slider) is probably drawing them in. We haven’t seen any in the kitchen or upstairs areas.</p>
<p>So it looks like Terro Ant traps are the way to go along with cleaning out my office area which has become rather cluttered. It also means no more eating at my desk.</p>
<p>I would also like to see if I can find some kind of shield product to keep them from coming inside - basically something like granules that I can sprinkle around the slider to prevent them from coming in.</p>
<p>Also, can you use the Terro outside to attract them or do you just leave it inside?</p>
<p>It’s rather fortunate that we upgraded the computer now as we caught them relatively early (I hope). I’m not ruling out calling a professional either. We had carpenter ants for a while and tried a bunch of things but the professional took care of the problem about five years ago and we haven’t had problems since.</p>
<p>BTW, the upgrade was a bit of a pain as it took a bit of time to place the two video cards in slots where they wouldn’t be too close together - I want to avoid heat issues. One of them is fan-less so I don’t want a buildup on one affecting the other. Fortunately there are a ton of slots on the motherboard providing one solution that keeps them far apart. It certainly is different having a system with 16 GB of RAM - biggest desktop memory config that I have. My office desktops on have 9 GB each (triple-channel memory).</p>
<p>Adding praises for Terro, but also for using ground cinnamon or anything else to break the scent trail. Strong-smelling spices, scouring powder, even just drawing a thick chalk line works. </p>
<p>Our modus operandi for smaller outbreaks: use a vacuum cleaner to vacuum up the ant trail to the point where it enters the house. That’s much neater and easier than using hot wet towels. Then use ground cinnamon or whatever’s on hand (cloves, nutmeg, chalk) to lay down a scent barrier that completely isolates and confuses the ants milling outside. Go back along trail, vacuuming up stragglers. Then scour down the inside area where the trail existed.</p>
<p>Okay, Comet and Terro. I need to find out when Home Depot closes. I’ll sprinkle the Comet outside to break the trail (hopefully). If HD doesn’t carry Comet, I guess I’ll need to find a supermarket open late to get cinnamon - expensive stuff for ants.</p>
<p>We tried cinnamon, borax, everything… The Terro traps were the only thing that worked! Amazing.</p>
<p>I got the Terro and the Comet. Will sprinkle the Comet outside along the slider tonight (guess I need a spray bottle to wet down the area) and try a drop of Terro. Not many ants crawling around right now - I guess we got most of them that we can see.</p>
<p>No more eating food in the basement!</p>
<p>We won TGWOA (The Great War On Ants) in 2005-2006 by using a mix of Amdro and Terro outside, then inside (walk out waist-high basement with kitchen) we drilled small holes on the wall and pumped ant spray and liquid gel, then closed the holes (1/8 inch) with spackle.</p>
<p>Also, in the basement pantry and basement in general (the house has 2 kitchens and we live in the lower level most of the time) all ‘smelly’ food including some very potent Asian spices (wife is Asian) that are like neon lights for ants were put in airtight plastic containers. No more ants for 6 years. Annual maintenance is a perimeter of Amdro and Terro.</p>
<p>So you put the Terro outside in containers? That doesn’t draw the ones inside does it?</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip on Amdro.</p>
<p>How do you use Terro as a perimeter?</p>
<p>Terro has different products - we use the one in the inverted plastic bag (Outdoor Ant Killer Shaker Bag) plus the plastic Amdro. Put both at the same time once or twice a year.</p>
<p>Well, I put four of the tabs on the floor. We convinced one ant to go on the tab and the ant went over and took a sip and then wandered off. The ants seem interested but they’re having trouble getting onto the tab to get the Terro. We’ve been discussing their crappy algorithm for acquiring sweet stuff.</p>
<p>It does appear that we got most of them with the vacuum cleaner. I also put two bowls outside with the stuff near the house. They might not be able to get into the bowls though. These ants seem far less aggressive than carpenter ants. We have carpeting and it might be that they are two tired to go very far after trying to get someplace with sweets.</p>
<p>So for those that have observed Terro working, the ants are all over the tab and the liquid?</p>
<p>One of the ants managed to climb the underside of the bowl, up the lip and down into the bowl, grab the liquid and is now climbing out. I just hope that we don’t have to depend on this one lone ant to do all of the work.</p>
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<p>Call me crazy, but I find it kind of sad to think that this heroic lone ant is bringing death to his tribe. Too many animated movies, I guess. :)</p>
<p>Two ants in the bowl this morning. I didn’t know what to expect this morning - getting overrun or no ants at all. Just something in the middle - a few here and there. I did a bit of vacuuming in the area that leads to the upstairs - will try to let the Terro do its work. I also took a spray bottle of Windex and sprayed outside near the house. Windex is pretty tame stuff - I don’t think that it’s going to kill anything but it should mess up the ant trails. I still have the Comet but it isn’t opened yet.</p>
<p>I had a look at Amdro’s webpages and it doesn’t contain a lot of detailed information. THe links to their spec sheets are dead and the site feels heavy on marketing and light on chemistry. They have indoor and outdoor products. My guess is that the indoor products are similar to Terro. I will pick up a container of their outdoor sprinkles to create an outdoor shield as suggested.</p>
<p>Amdro also had some graphic videos of fire ants. They didn’t show the fire ants - just the reactions of people working or playing in their yards getting bit by fire ants. I have never had the experience of dealing with them but it sounds like they are a major nuisance.</p>
<p>So for today, clean up the clutter in the basement and vacuum so that the ants stay away from the stairs, use Andro for perimeter defense and try their indoor products.</p>
<p>One other thing about Andro - they sell it at Lowes and some small, local hardware stores (yes, there are a few of those still around) but not at Home Depot. Must have some kind of exclusive deal.</p>
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<p>I’m hoping that it leads to an evolutionary improvement so that the surviving colonies (and I’m sure that there are lots of them outside) don’t go inside houses. It appears that this solution (Borax or other chemicals) has worked for a long period of time so that these kinds of ants aren’t adapting. Perhaps the toxicity levels of these chemicals are such that there aren’t any survivors for mutations to progress.</p>
<p>I’ve had good luck killing ants with vinegar and h2o solutions. I would be reluctant to use these chemicals, especially inside the house. Roundup (glycoside) which for years was thought safe, is now being discontinued in many places. You should read Silent Spring.</p>
<p>The active ingredient in Terro is Borax.</p>
<p>From Wikipedia:</p>
<p>Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.</p>
<p>Borax has a wide variety of uses. It is a component of many detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes. It is also used to make buffer solutions in biochemistry, as a fire retardant, as an anti-fungal compound for fiberglass, as an insecticide, as a flux in metallurgy, a texturing agent in cooking, and as a precursor for other boron compounds.</p>