Recommend...An effective Ant Poison

[utahjeepr]

3rd vote for Amdro. Works. Works fast. Other products may be great, but when I was in Houston with the fire ants that was THE name on everyone's list.

[ace4059]

I use Amdro fire ant bait. I’ve only used that since it’s what my neighbor recommended 20 years ago and haven’t had to try anything else.

[Chubbs103]

For individual mound treatment, I use Martin's Surrender. It works really well. It also smells as though a camel with dysentary ate a barrel of rotting cabbage and then vomited and defecated all over your yard...but your ant will be dead.

[czgunner]

We mix borax sugar and water. All ants dead in a few days.

[SomeOtherGuy]

We mix borax sugar and water. All ants dead in a few days.

There are some commercial products that are basically this. We've used them with good results. Chosen because we have various domestic animals and it's the least likely to harm them if eaten by a mammal.

[TexHill]

A gallon of gasoline does wonders.

[Bulletdog]

What type of ants and where in the country? This matters because they are motivated by different things, and at different times of year.

Here in the dry South West, they want water in summer. Any bait that is wet gets them. During our rainy season the ants don't care about water, but the sugary foods attract them. They come from underground up into the walls and foundation and never traverse the sprayed areas.

In general, I've tried all sorts of pesticidal sprays above ground and all around the foundation of the house. None of them did anything to the ants, but they all killed all sorts of beneficial insects. Problem is the ants are deep under ground and they avoid the areas we spray. The only way I've found to get at them is to feed them something delicious and desirable that they take back underground and into the colony with them, killing the queen, all the babies and all the workers. Spraying toxic chemicals all around your house does more harm to you than it does to the ants.

When we first moved into this house, we realized we lived on a giant ant hill. I went through gallons of spray and I plugged every micro hole, crack and crevice with putty, and they continually kept coming. One crumb left on the kitchen counter would bring thousands of ants by morning. For two years we fought them. We must have wiped out millions and it did nothing to stem the flow. Finally I put out a Terro Ant Bait. It is sugar water and borax. The ants were on it immediately and swarming it within an hour. My wife wanted to get the windex out and wipe them all up, but I convinced her to leave them be and let them take the bait. Those little f*uckers would clean an entire tray of the stuff clean and dry within hours. I started having to put out two and three trays at a time to feed them all. They'd show up, I'd put down a bait tray, they would swarm it within hours, and I'd put down one or two more trays, and then within a day or two, nothing. Gone. No sign of them. In that area anyway. Its really hard to leave a million ants swarming a bait tray on your kitchen floor, but if you let them do their work, they will wipe out the entire underground colony for you. We did this all over the house for a month and then they just stopped coming. We wiped them all out and didn't see another ant invasion for over two years. They eventually moved back in from wherever they come from, but a single bait tray gets rid of them in a day, and then we don't see any for a long while again.

Outdoors here, with the big red ants and the little red ants, I've had good success with Amdro granules. I ignore the instructions. Scattering it around does nothing. I pour it right down the hole and make a little one inch mound on top. Initially, I think they are just trying to clear the entrance to their lair, but then some of them realize its food and carry it down into the ground to feed to the colony. In a really big colony, I might see some survivors trying to start up again 2 or 3 feet from the original hole after a couple of days, and a second treatment wipes them out completely. This stuff is poison, so I have to take care that my dogs, kids and other animals can't get to the treated area until after the ants pull it all underground. The bright yellow color makes this easy to see and usually only takes a couple few hours. Sometimes its easiest to just set a milk crate over the area until they carry the bait down their hole.

In the South East with all the rain and humidity the water doesn't seem to attract them. Friends from there tell me treating for fire ants is different than treating for the little black house ants. Some say Amdro works there, but you have to time it around the rain.

I've tried food grade diatomaceous earth multiple times, and that has never worked for me at all on any ant species.

Good luck! Come back and tell us what works and what doesn't.

[Alex V]

This is by far the most effective ant killer I have used. Just 1-2 tablespoons on a mound and it kills them all.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ortho-Or...2210/100056182

Edit:is this the same Orthene you haven't had luck with? I haven't had problems with the mounds relocating.

Not gonna lie, I did not expect THIS many bugs when I loved to NC lol. We have a ton of fire ant hills on our property. I was oblivious when we first bought the house and got LIT UP!

We have used that Ortho stuff and it seems to kill ant hills really quick. I just killed about 10 or 15 hills this weekend. We’ll see if they relocate during the week.

[horseman234]

I've used borax and sugar without water. Just sprinkled the mixture on the mound. Worker ants take it to the queen, and which kills her. Hasn't failed yet, although it does take a few days.

[diving dave]

Up here in Montana we have ants that make nests out of pine needles that get deep into a mound. A little gas and they go up like a volcano.