Ants! Please help before I go crazy.

Mrs_JR

Why on earth would I have ants right now?  I asked for suggestions last summer for getting rid of them, but it seemed to clear up before I used anything.  I've been dealing with them for a week now.  It's all in my kitchen.  It's not perfectly clean in there, but we wipe the counters daily, do dishes daily, and I sweep and steam mop at least every 2-3 days.  What can I do???  I'm going bonkers. 

pandabearlover

Ants are a big problem here.  Everything goes in a Ziploc baggie or in the fridge. Do you have some food out on your counter?  That is usually what brings them to my kitchen.

I use Clorox wipes on them when I see them, wiping the whole area where they were and then we have ant spray if they are really bad. 

grbnik

Do you have a tree or any type of shrub near a window?   My grandparents used to always get ants because they had a crabapple tree that had a branch close to their window.  Ants drive me nuts too!  We had a bunch of tiny ones here at work, and used those little taro traps to get them.

sweetpea18

We had ants coming in from our dryer vent! Annoying! We have a quarterly pest control service. It's the only thing that's gotten rid of them.

ss+el

We get them on one side of the house every spring and have yet to figure out how they're getting in. We buy ant baits and put them out of the reach of little arms and it seems to work well.

Mrs_JR

We have bread and fruit on our counter, but I've never seen them on the counter.  I only see them on the floor.  They are around our wine rack and the cat's food bowl.  We keep the cat food crumbs swept up when we notice them. 

No trees around the kitchen area.  We live in a townhome.  The wall that's a problem is shared with our neighbor and we only have a sliding door in the kitchen that leads to a raised deck.  

Victoria6F

Sprinkel some Borax where you notice them. They'll take that back to their 'home' and that'll kill them off. We get the little black (grease) ants- that's what H calls them. Borax is safer than posins. AND it's also a GREAT weed killer It's like $3 at Target!

Mrs.Reem

We battled ants all summer last year in a similar townhome. The only thing that finally made them stop totally shocked me and that was sprinkling baking soda on their path. It threw them off and made them stop coming back. I put it across the doorway on the patio and never saw them again. If you can track their trail back to a wall or something, try running the baking soda across that area.