Does anyone know where I can find a good "ant-bait" product? Back at my house in Melbourne(Australia) I use this absolutely fantastic ant-bait that worked like a charm, but the only "bait type" I seem to find here is the crappy powder, that not even ONE single ant touches when I put it out for them We have hired a fumigator, but I noticed that he is more focused on getting paid than actually looking for the nests... I have sprayed baygon etc but it would be way easier to give them something to carry back to the nest. Any advice is welcomed!
If you search out the nests and wreck them you can get the ants to move. We have never once had our house fumigated. We have an occasional random ant. When we moved in there were nests in a few places in the house (including one in the kitchen), we destroyed each nest and when the ants made a new nest somewhere else we destroyed it too. For now we seem to have won, no nests in the house, no ants, no problem. Get out your vacuum cleaner and go after then nests. Then worry about pesticides.
Problem is that the flat we are renting is very poorly built, so there are hundreds and houndreds of "gaps" in the walls etc. The holes are airholes I guess from when they applied the concrete, so they are tiny as needles... Believe me, I have destroyed maybe 50 of them so far(even removed the kitchen sink holder to get to one huge nest..) but they just keep coming back I really dont like pestecides, but in this case some kind of "carry-home-to-the-nest" thing would be great. I do give them credit for being one of the ultimate nature survivors( I am a huge nature-nerd and darn proud of it! ) but this is getting to a point were its really bugging me.. alot. Last night I got rid of 2 nests, and then I put a tiny piece of banana in a empty tuna can, just to try... In the morning, the whole army was there...again I followed them(sounds a bit creepy, I know) home and destroyed the nest... Now in the afternoon they are back...again. At least it gives me stuff to do when Im bored
I bring Terro from the U.S. whenever I can. It works great! I put it out and ants are gone. I have never seen it in Cancun. Maybe you can look for the ingredients and find something similar. http://www.terro.com/ I'm in the U.S. now. PM me if interested in having me bring some back for you when I return in January.
See if you can get someone to send you a few bottles of a product named Terro. It's available at Home Depot in the US and can be ordered at www.terro.com. Terro is of boric acid and sugar in a liquid solution that attracts sweet eating ants. The ants carry the bait back to their nest, and Terro will kill the entire colony. Alternately, you could probably mix up a batch yourself. It's basically a 5.4% solution of boric acid in syrup. Keep away from kids and pets. You just have to put a bit in a tinfoil cup or a piece of cardboard and let the little critters gorge themselves.
One problem with rentals is that you don't want to have to plug all the holes in the walls. In our house, which we own, we've caulked the heck out of all the windows and doors and have left the ants with few places to make nests. You might try caulk since it's really cheap. The ants will find other holes but it's not too hard to get ahead of them. Ants dislike cinnamon, it won't kill them or hurt them, but you can use it to disrupt their trails and "reroute" them some. So if you have ants entering from outside you can block the trail with cinnamon and it will keep them out. It's a bit dusty but makes your house smell nice when you sprinkle cinnamon all over... When we wreck an ant nest we usually hit it with raid. Just to be sure they don't go back to that spot. But so far we've never fumigated our house, we've just sprayed in a few specific spots.
I had been mixing boric acid with syrups but had a constant problem. Then a neighbor brought over her daughter's Ortho Home Defense pump spray and took liberties. There isn't a pest on the property, but the geckos survived! It can't be all bad and it is nice to have a place that will be ant free, according to the label, for 4 months. Daughter got it at Sam's Club. In the back house, ants had been coming through a rough finish ceiling. She sprayed that, and not a single ant has reappear from under the palm tree above!
