The most common ants that you will find swarming inside houses at this type of year are odorous house ants. These are small brown or black ants. They are typically 1/8 inch long and are usually found in kitchens or bathrooms. They are called odorous house ants because when they are crushed they have a noticeable odor that is typically described as rotten coconut.
This type of ants is everywhere in my neighborhood and I have been dealing with them for a little over 7 years now. I will share what has worked for me and what hasn’t. There is also plenty of information on the web about them and I would recommend taking some time to read about their life cycle. Understanding how they live and breed can be very helpful in fighting them. Google “odorous house ant” and you should get plenty of good information. These ants are also referred to as sugar ants because they love anything sweet.
First you will get more of them in the house this time of year as they move their nests to warm dry places for the winter. The end of summer and fall is the best time to have a repellant insecticide sprayed around the perimeter of your house. You can either hire a pest control operator to do this or if you want to do it yourself there are a variety of websites that sell chemicals as nearly as effective as those used by commercial applicators. The reason for the perimeter spray is to keep the ants from migrating into your house. Also you will want to cut back any vegetation that is in contact with the house as the ants will use this as a means of gaining entry.
In the house they will typically live between the sheet rock and the insulation. Although they can get through almost any crack and I have found them nesting in the cracks between bricks, between two 2x4s nailed together and between sheets of drywall. They can live almost anywhere it is dry but they particularly like living between two sheets of material that are close together. The ants will also be attracted to warm areas which can include electrical boxes, wall voids around plumbing equipment and near heat ducts.
Once in the house unfortunately they are one of the most difficult pests to treat. The reason is they have multiple queens in each colony and if you spray insecticide inside the walls for them the colony will break up and the surviving queens will each set up individual nests, so if you don’t get them all you may end up with a worse problem in the end.
The most effective way to combat them is with baits. The best bait we have found is called “Terro” it is a sugar bait that contains boric acid (think boraxo soap). It is not toxic to humans or animals but is very toxic to insects. Once they find the bait they will swarm to it taking it back to the nest where they will feed it to the queens and young. The best place to locate the bait is on a trial and as close to the nest as possible. It is very important to get it close to the nest because you want as many ants as possible eating the bate and as few ants as possible find food from other sources. Along with the sweet bait you will also want to have a protein based bate because they need both sugars and proteins in their diet. For this I use Maxforce Ant Killer Granules, this is more toxic and you will want to make sure this is in a place where your dogs won’t get to it. You will only need a little of this at a time because they will primarily go for the sugars. They will show up in mass for the bate at first and they you will see them taper off. Usually they will come back again and again but in smaller numbers each time. You have to be persistent and it may take several years to get rid of them completely. Baiting will significantly reduce the numbers also they will go for the bait over your food which reduces the annoyance factor immensely.
They will show up primarily two places in the house the kitchen and bathroom. That is because they are looking for food and water. In the kitchen put anything that is sweet in a sealed container or in the refrigerator. Tupperware works great for this. Also watch the dog or cat food they sometimes go after this but it is not as common as things like sugar and honey. When you find trails in the kitchen you can spray them with Orange Guard. This is a pesticide made from the extract of orange peels. It is not toxic to people or animals but will kill the ants on contact. Orange peels contain a powerful natural insecticide. You can read more and order it off of their website www.orangeguard.com. This will also work to repel the ants. If you have trail in the kitchen the other thing you will want to do is wash the trail with a bleach water solution. This washes away their pheromones markers which the ants use to follow the trail.
I have found the best prices for buying Terro is on Ebay. You can get the Terro in a 10oz bottle for about $15 including shipping which is much cheaper than you can buy it anywhere locally. I know they have the MaxForce both on Ebay and at the local hardware stores. I have purchased
Orange guard directly from the company website.
When you are remodeling in an area that has these ants you should use a boric acid dry powder inside walls, under cabinets and basically in any place they could live. It is very inexpensive and extremely effective. They don’t like the stuff and will not nest anywhere near it. I have experimented putting boric acid across their trails and they will always go around it. You can buy this and an insecticide duster off of almost any pest control website.
During the summers when the ants are active out doors treat any trails or nest you find with either bait or spray. Bait trails and if you find a nest with eggs and queens spray it with the Orange Guard. Alternately if you have one handy a shop vac works very well when you find a nest. You should try to eliminate the ants anywhere on your property you find them because then they won’t be moving into your house to set up nests later.
The most important thing is to keep after them. Once your get the ants out of your house don’t stop treatment or they will just move back in. Keep up the perimeter spraying and treat all nests that you find out of door. The fewer ants living in the immediate area around your house the fewer problems you will have with them in your house.
