<p>Teeth. :eek: What were those mice thinking?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/SPEC/pick-drmoss1.htm[/url]”>http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/SPEC/pick-drmoss1.htm</a></p>
<p>This is the blue stuff. Bottle is now see-through and not yellow. Cheap, you make your own bait stations with lids, etc. Works like a charm.</p>
<p>I read about using dryer sheets to repel ants. I was skeptical but tried it in my kitchen and so far it has worked.</p>
<p>mootmom: Does that stuff work on those tiny little ants? That’s what I have - and for some reason this year they are int he laundry room!</p>
<p>I also find the Terro bait works best, but I have had better luck with the kind that comes in the plastic container – you just cut a slit in the container and then set it down. See:
<a href=“http://www.terro.com/dev/products.php?product=liquid_ant_bait[/url]”>http://www.terro.com/dev/products.php?product=liquid_ant_bait</a></p>
<p>And yes it works on the tiny ants – big problem with them here. (They don’t bother me too much, because I grew up in Texas where we had huge biting ants - and these tiny California ants are more of a nuisance but less of a menace. But I read somewhere that California is sitting on top of one giant, interconnected, nonstop ant colony, so all we can ever do is keep them at bay. </p>
<p>Also, an orange-scented cleanser will kill them instantly – but they’ll come back, which is why you need the Terro. But I use the orange stuff on countertops where I don’t want to leave ant bait. I hear that Simple Green will kill them too, but I haven’t tried.</p>
<p>^you mean those “huge biting ants” that sneak up on you by the dozens as you are putting in the annuals or weeding the flower beds, silently climbing into your tennis shoes and up your pant legs, covering feet and limbs waiting for the precise moment when they will signal each other to take a simultaneous chomp out of your flesh? </p>
<p>lol!! It’s no horror movie…it’s just the Texas fire ant.</p>
<p>An exterminator once told me that if you can find where the ants are coming in from outside (or at least general area), you can sprinkle Borax outside and that will help stop them before they enter the house.</p>
<p>And yes, the Terror works well on the little ants (my mom calls them “sweet ants” and the big ones “**** ants”).</p>
<p>For ants inside, wipe down all surfaces with Windex; it really works!! I have an area by my sink that twice a year an entire army of ants invade. I spray my counter tops as well as the backsplash with windex (including the ants marching there) and wipe the area down. The ants that are there will die, and most of the new ones coming in will die or not come in.</p>
<p>Don’t ask me how it works, it just does!!!</p>
<p>Thank you so much!! I’m going to definitely try one of these products! Funny story about the false teeth. I’m one of those jump-on-the-chair-and-scream- people with mice.</p>
<p>I’ve used Windex on ant infestations, too, and it works for a short time but then they come back. That’s when I pull out the Terro and steel myself to see <em>more</em> of them before I see <em>less</em> of them, and then POOF! (Insert Pink Panther theme.)</p>
<p>And if you want to hear a funny story… For years I have kept pet rats (although I do not have any living with me right now). The domesticated “fancy” varieties are sweet, gentle, clean, and very intelligent little pets. Wouldn’t you know, one night a small wild field rat got into our house through the garage somewhere and as my (then much younger) sons and I were trying to chase it out of our guestroom downstairs, it ran out from under the bed and I (yes, I, keeper of rodents as pets) leapt up onto a chair and screamed. How mortifying. All I can say in my own defense is that it was the surprise of something ZOOMING towards my feet, and not the fact that it was a rodent. (At least I think that was it. 
)</p>
<p>Good luck bethievt.</p>
<p>Treatment depends on the kind of ant. Big ones could be carpenter ants, they eat wood and NEED to be exterminated so the don’t eat your house (such as the wood support beams). The tiny ones eat sweet things and are easily killed by many methods. For carpenter ants you need to get the colony(ies), which may be anywhere, so you need to get the insecticide inside the walls, etc. Orkin and Terminex would want to drill holes in the baseboard and make you sign a monthly contract for a year. You want to identify the type of ant (been there, done that…). Firewood or any mulch near the house could have been the source months ago. Feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Another critter story. Our house is in the city but the land is wooded. Our then 3 year old named the field mouse that had wandered into our newly built house “Friendly”, it took a day or two to trap him(?) in a cardboard box and release him where he belonged- outside. Fortunately critters don’t scare me, but I am selfish and want my house to be for my chosen inhabitants only. If only I could limit the garden spaces as well…</p>