Best Way To Kill Ants That Is Free and Doesn't Involve An Exterminator?

hiccupleftovers

hiccupleftovers

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Recently, with the weather heating up and it being moist, humid, and a bit rainy I have been having sort of an infestation of ants. So far I've been killing them off by using the big bottles of bug spray from home depot and raining it down on them (found one nest and drenched it) and then using ajax or clorox to turn it into sort of a mud. So far it's been doing a decent job, but I was wondering if there were any other/better methods of killing them? And let me tell you, I fucking hate ants and bugs.
 
Let me provide you with some "good ole Alabamian redneck science." Supposedly, some people around here will pour grits or oatmeal on an ant pile. They eat it, and explode. I haven't exactly *proven* this theory, but it's cheap.. and the thought of popping ants is kind of funny.
 
I have the same problem. Every year they come back too, and every year I try everything to get rid of them. I find that putting down some of those ant traps usually works the best.
 
I have heard of that oatmeal theory before. Just cook up a pot and spread it around their nest. maybe just pur it down they're hole, in the nest that is.

if that doesn't work you should invest in one of these:

glass.jpg
 
We started getting them last year. I just stick some combat traps on the exterior walls of my home. After about a month and a few boxes of traps they stop coming in the home. I keep the traps up all summer though. However the number of them outside double.
 
[quote name='Quackzilla']Mix ammonia and bleach.

2NaOCl + 2NH3 --> 2NaONH3 + Cl2

Those ants will be DEAD![/quote]

Along with the OP, sure. :lol:
 
Ants liquify their food before they eat it so the oatmeal and grits will not work.

You need to find out what kind of ants you have before going all kung-fu on them. We had a fire ant infestation in our last place and those motherfuckers can suck my dick.

Some kind of ants are really easy to get rid of, while others you will never be able to get rid of(like fire ants). We were killing at least 300-400 ants a day and thinking we were doing something. Until I learned that each little bitch queen can lay up to 1000-1500 eggs A DAY. They also normally have more then one queen per colony.

Rei is right about the traps being the best. I bought my own Boric Acid(which is really cheap) and mixed it with peanut butter. They loved that. Same with Boric Acid and honey. Boric Acid is poisonious to animals so if you have any be very careful. Good luck. I was never able to get rid of the bastards but was able to keep their numbers down somewhat.
 
[quote name='Rei no Otaku']I have the same problem. Every year they come back too, and every year I try everything to get rid of them. I find that putting down some of those ant traps usually works the best.[/QUOTE]

Yeah ant traps are interesting.

I remember last summer (we'll have to again this summer) it was typical Cali heat and we had ants. We put some traps down, and suddenly there were just tons of ants randomly dead around the house. An entire ant line that marched across the entire house just seemed to be sitting there dead. There were hundreds of dead ants around the traps.

Dying ants (especially drowning) are the best. :lol:
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever'] i have heard pouring boiling water on their nest kills them[/quote]
I've always wanted to squirt kerosene down the holes and soak the nest then light the whole thing on fire. Burn bitches, burn! :hot:
 
Go to Wal Mart and go to the garden center. Look for this stuff called Terro. You put it down on little cardboard squares and they flock to it. The stuff is super sweet and they carry it back to their colony sharing it and killing off all of their buddies.

This stuff is far and away the best stuff I have found short of an exterminator and it only costs about 3 bucks. Trust me, I've used everything and this stuff is the only thing I've found that gets rid of them for good. It might take a good week or so before you get them all, but just keep putting it out until they quit coming back.
 
If you have more than one ant hill, try this little trick:

Take a shovel over to hill #1 and scoop up about half of it. Then, take the shovelful of dirt/ants over to hill #2 and set it beside it on the ground. Then, take a shovelful of hill #2 over to hill #1. Those motherfuckers will fight it out and get so goddamn confused that the hills will just melt away.

You might think I'm shitting you, but I've seen it happen!
 
[quote name='Blitz']Ants liquify their food before they eat it so the oatmeal and grits will not work. [/QUOTE]
BS. My family uses that method, and it seems to work.

I believe the way it kills them is they try to ingest it, but the grit or oatmeal 'pellets' are too big for their stomachs, and burst through their bodies, or something like that. It's one of those things I've always wanted to experience first hand...
 
[quote name='PKRipp3r']nicely done

here is a good link...

http://www.thefrugallife.com/ants.html[/quote]

Thanks for the link. Seems like there are some good suggestions there that I'll be trying.

[quote name='Tiphireth']The soles of your feet don't cost a dime. :D[/quote]

Yaeh and the excersise I'll be getting, but it's tooooooooooo hot here to do that and too tiring.:D

[quote name='Blitz']Ants liquify their food before they eat it so the oatmeal and grits will not work.

You need to find out what kind of ants you have before going all kung-fu on them. We had a fire ant infestation in our last place and those motherfuckers can suck my dick.

Some kind of ants are really easy to get rid of, while others you will never be able to get rid of(like fire ants). We were killing at least 300-400 ants a day and thinking we were doing something. Until I learned that each little bitch queen can lay up to 1000-1500 eggs A DAY. They also normally have more then one queen per colony.

Rei is right about the traps being the best. I bought my own Boric Acid(which is really cheap) and mixed it with peanut butter. They loved that. Same with Boric Acid and honey. Boric Acid is poisonious to animals so if you have any be very careful. Good luck. I was never able to get rid of the bastards but was able to keep their numbers down somewhat.[/quote]

I had fire ants last summer that I called an exterminator for. Guy did a great job and I haven't seen one in a long time. But where would you find those traps? Just at any hardware store or like Walmart or something? how much do they usually go for?

[quote name='Chris in Cali']Windex. Spray it heavily around the point of entry, it works great.[/quote]

I've tried that as well. It worked somewhat, but wasn't econimcal and didn't really keep their numbers down.

[quote name='Badgun']Go to Wal Mart and go to the garden center. Look for this stuff called Terro. You put it down on little cardboard squares and they flock to it. The stuff is super sweet and they carry it back to their colony sharing it and killing off all of their buddies.

This stuff is far and away the best stuff I have found short of an exterminator and it only costs about 3 bucks. Trust me, I've used everything and this stuff is the only thing I've found that gets rid of them for good. It might take a good week or so before you get them all, but just keep putting it out until they quit coming back.[/quote]

Going to try and do this tomorrow then.
 
[quote name='organicow']If you have more than one ant hill, try this little trick:

Take a shovel over to hill #1 and scoop up about half of it. Then, take the shovelful of dirt/ants over to hill #2 and set it beside it on the ground. Then, take a shovelful of hill #2 over to hill #1. Those motherfuckers will fight it out and get so goddamn confused that the hills will just melt away.

You might think I'm shitting you, but I've seen it happen![/quote]

Problem is with this method, is that I've already found one nest which I scooped up and mixed around with a shovel. Than I went with my method of using Ajax and Clorox with some bug spray or Windex to turn into a mud like substance, thus killing off this nest. I know this for a fact as i didn't see any more ants come from this nest nor from anywhere for a while. Right now, I'm having a very difficult time locating where the new nest is. I think it might under a bush or a tree I can't really get to, but I've also seen a ton of them along a wall of mine and coming from my neighbor's yard.
 
[quote name='Badgun']Go to Wal Mart and go to the garden center. Look for this stuff called Terro. You put it down on little cardboard squares and they flock to it. The stuff is super sweet and they carry it back to their colony sharing it and killing off all of their buddies.

This stuff is far and away the best stuff I have found short of an exterminator and it only costs about 3 bucks. Trust me, I've used everything and this stuff is the only thing I've found that gets rid of them for good. It might take a good week or so before you get them all, but just keep putting it out until they quit coming back.[/quote]

I was gonna suggest that myself. I agree that its the best stuff I've ever used.
 
[quote name='Badgun']Go to Wal Mart and go to the garden center. Look for this stuff called Terro. You put it down on little cardboard squares and they flock to it. The stuff is super sweet and they carry it back to their colony sharing it and killing off all of their buddies.

This stuff is far and away the best stuff I have found short of an exterminator and it only costs about 3 bucks. Trust me, I've used everything and this stuff is the only thing I've found that gets rid of them for good. It might take a good week or so before you get them all, but just keep putting it out until they quit coming back.[/quote]

We can also vouch for Terro. It ain't free, but it worked for us.


**I want to also mention that we ended up doing liquid termite treatment (termites are a big problem in HI), and that ended up eliminating both the 'mites and ants.
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever']i have heard pouring boiling water on their nest kills them[/QUOTE]WORD UP ON BOILING WATER!!

oh man, dat shit's like... liquid death yo.

works like a charm
 
Paint Thinner kills them fuckers like they're nothing. No joke. They look like coffee grindings after they're splashed... either that or ash.
 
I am glad I don't live on the ground floor of the apartment building. I only see one or two ants/bugs a month or so.
 
[quote name='jPoD']
300.jpg
[/quote]
Considering that shit is $5 for a tiny bottle, you're so much better off with raid.
 
[quote name='Tiphireth']Considering that shit is $5 for a tiny bottle, you're so much better off with raid.[/QUOTE]

Meh. I dont buy that shit. I just use cologne and arrid spray.
 
Try to follow their trails and find out how they are getting in your house. You need to plug up all the tiny little holes in your house to keep them out for good.
 
I've only had a problem once or twice what I did to keep them out of the house which seemed to work is I put cucumber peels around the bottoms of door and window frames.

This worked very well for me (and the cost is excellent) but I didn't have a visible nest so I don't know if it will work for you. (At least it doesn't cost anything extra)
 
[quote name='jPoD']Meh. I dont buy that shit. I just use cologne and arrid spray.[/quote]
Good. Actually, I found a use for Axe, since it's useless as deoderant:

300.jpg
+
istockphoto_780261_lit_match.jpg
= Dead ants. :D
 
Sorry to jack the thread, but does anyone have an ideas for a moth problem? Got a hellova a lot of moths around the house and I can't get rid of 'em. I just can't squish those suckers fast enough.
 
[quote name='dtarasev']Sorry to jack the thread, but does anyone have an ideas for a moth problem? Got a hellova a lot of moths around the house and I can't get rid of 'em. I just can't squish those suckers fast enough.[/quote]

Get a big bucket of water, and mix in soap to make it opaque. Procure a clip-lamp, and shine it into the water, get the bulb a few inches above the water, so it lights up the soapy mixture. The moths will fly into the light they see, which is the water, getting soaked and ruining their wings. Eventually they drown, or you can just throw them in the trash. This works really well; our house was literally infested with thousands of moths one summer and this got rid of almost all of them in a couple of days.
 
[quote name='Tiphireth']Get a big bucket of water, and mix in soap to make it opaque. Procure a clip-lamp, and shine it into the water, get the bulb a few inches above the water, so it lights up the soapy mixture. The moths will fly into the light they see, which is the water, getting soaked and ruining their wings. Eventually they drown, or you can just throw them in the trash. This works really well; our house was literally infested with thousands of moths one summer and this got rid of almost all of them in a couple of days.[/quote]

Damn, that sounds like a kick ass idea. I will implement your "traps" immediately.

To the OP, ant traps work wonders. I had an ant problem a year ago, they were all over the kitchen and such. So I got some Raid Ant traps and placed them all over the floor. In about 3 days they were all gone.
 
[quote name='dtarasev']Damn, that sounds like a kick ass idea. I will implement your "traps" immediately.

[/quote]
You'll have to change the water once they pile up, you know, so that there's actually water for them to hit rather than bodies. Multiple traps helps this. But otherwise, you sould be good to go, good luck. x3
 
same problem, I am on a top floor apartment where ants took up shop in my walls, I tried baits for a few weeks and they did not seem to work. after trying to coax my landlord into sending someone to drill into the walls and put some insecticide up there to no avail, I just got some foggers, opened up my cieling and wall fixtures to expose the inside of the walls, and let off 4 foggers in my apartment, I have only seen but a few dying ants. But that beats seeing about 30 in each room at any given moment, I assume that if I did not destroy the queen that they went down to my neighbors apartment (sorry!) and they didn't even find any food in here the whole time except deadly borax bait.

If you want non-chemical you're going to have to go with baits and non chemical sprays, I got fed up enough to declare chemical warfare on them and bar their entry.
 
[quote name='Tiphireth']I've always wanted to squirt kerosene down the holes and soak the nest then light the whole thing on fire. Burn bitches, burn! :hot:[/QUOTE]


My friend and I poured roughly 2 bottles of lighter fluid down an enormous anthill, the dropped a match down it. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
 
I'll vouch for Terro also, just keep it away from your pets or young kids (if you have any). In my old apartment somehow I had an infestation of those tiny ants around my window. A couple dabs of Terro and there would literally be thousands of ants crawling on top of each other to try and get the stuff. A few minutes later they were all dead.
 
Well Terro shouldn't kill them on the spot, they are meant to take it back to the queen and colony, the problem is, it doesn't always work so well depending on your situation. an exterminator came out here one time and actually pumped some bait up into my cieling fixture in my apartment, needless to say, ants just started swarming the place, but get this, they were not eating the bait, in fact when I opened up the fixture it was completely entombed in the insulation. That lame plan seemed to just backfire, thats when I just said the hell with it and bombed the place, with the landlords permission of course ;)


Also, you could try double sided tape, or mounting tape as a cheap method of keeping them out of some areas.

Then again the only reason these methods were free for me is because my landlord reimbursed me.
 
I happen to be an exterminator and the truth is that nothing will kill the ants quite like the materials we use. Those ant bait stations that you can purchase at the store only attract them to the house. Unfortunately if you want to get rid of them for good, only an exterminator will do. We are the only ones with access to the material neccessary for the job.
 
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