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Ants!


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It was a long day. Got DH up at 5 am, on the road by 6 am, at the hospital for surgery at 7 am to re-attach his bicep he tore in half while I was gone last month, in recovery at 10:30 am and on the road home by 11 am, driving carefully in the rain from the hurricane that is entering our state.

 

Got home and checked on the ferrets. Went to change their food and water and was horrified to see ANTS - black harvester, tiny, small, medium and large - everywhere in their room!!!!! :runcirclsmiley2:

 

Locked them out of their room (my office) and bleached and bleached and cleaned and cleaned. Poor little ferrets, those nasty little critters were even in their bedding (under my desk). :gaah:

 

I pulled base boards off the walls, vacuumed and bleached and bleached. All the time, trying to keep DH sitting on the couch and not trying to help! :shakinghead: For goodness sakes, can't he understand he is supposed to take it easy the first day?

 

Went outside and found two trails from two different directions, heading to an itty bitty tiny little hole. I went overboard with the ant killers. The outside of the house looks like I talcum powered it. :whistling:

 

I keep checking the area they were coming from but have only seen one or two. I am freaking out, I do not want ANY bugs in my house, let alone ants!

 

The ants have been a major problem this year. I think I have poisoned, at least, 50 ant hills in my yard. They are mean little buggers that think anytime I am near them, they can bite me. :imoksmiley:

 

 

Time to go check on DH and make sure he's doing OK.

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Prayers for a good recovery for Mr. Annarchy. Uh...how does one rip apart a bicep muscle? :blink:

 

Ants....like my plague with mice. AAAAuugggh! :frying pan:

 

 

Terro brand ant killer has always worked for me. But drastic action was needed for your hordes! :( Is it the unusual rain? I saw that hurricane was heading your way. Might throw some rain up to us too.

 

I poured boiling oil ...er, water into an anthill that was at the bottom of our steps. We don't have many here and that one was definitely not staying there. Bye Bye ants.

 

 

MtRider ....tell your dh to TAKE IT EASY! Rehab-ing him once is going to be bad enough. Doing it twice cuz he didn't take it easy...not gonna be fun, mister! :lol: [still taking my own advice....mostly] :imoksmiley:

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DH lifted wrong and heard a 'pop', and felt the pain. :sigh: Ripped it in half, an inch above his elbow.

 

Today, so far, no more ants in the house. Thank God! I am also wondering whether the additional rain has something to do with the increase of the ants. :shrug: I will be pulling out kitchen drawers and putting ant poison behind them.

 

It is sprinkling very lightly this morning, slightly overcast, the news said the storm should be arriving overhead today. Hoping no one gets flooded this time, many were overwhelmed by the last storm and are dealing with flood damage and mold. Something, us desert dwellers, are not used to.

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Hope your DH mends quickly!

 

Hope your ants DIE!

 

I've been seeing spiders in my house this fall. Very unusual. I've killed 4 in the last couple of months. Some seem to be a tan-ish brown color and some are a medium brown. They are the same kind though. About the size of a quarter, counting the legs. But they are very fleshy and rubbery looking. Not something you'd want to step on to kill. :animal0017:<-------Nasty buggers.

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When the little "P" ants (as we call them) come to visit (always around my kitchen sink), I put out a dish with 1 tbls. of sugar and 1 tablespoon of boric acid (to the back of my sink/counter area) and let them feast. It usually takes about 3 hours for it to poison their nests. I don't go searching out their hiding holes...they know exactly where they'll be carrying their "food" to :-) Works for us.

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Praying Mr. Annarchy heals quickly.

 

 

Are the ants you're talking about these teeny, tiny black ants? We started seeing them in our area about 4 or 5 years ago. Annoying little bugger's. We never has them in the house until this year...I've been fighting to keep them out of the bathroom for the past couple months. They're looking for water. And they do have a nasty little bite.

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Yes, Dogmom4. Their bites burn and itch.

The itty bitty tiny ones, go for the water. If you follow tiny ones to their hole, there are little ones, medium ones, (about the size of sugar ants, often called p*ss ants), then, larger ones and even larger thicker ones that carry bigger size loads.

About a month ago, I went to get a glass of water from the water cooler and the itty bitty tiny ones were harvesting the water from the spout. We followed their trail over 25 feet through the house, out the front door and into the yard, where we found the nest 10 yards away from the house. The nest consisted of numerous built up holes in a semi circle about 3 foot in radius.

I bleached the water cooler, inside and out, then bleached the floor along their trail. Warm bleach water seems to kill them almost instantly and seems to remove the scent trails they follow.

I am using Ant & Roach poison - white boric acid powder, and Amdro fire ant bait.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_garden_ant

  • Workers - Lasius niger workers are dark glossy black and are around 3-5mm long. As the colony gets older it has been known for workers to increase in size over generations.
  • Queen - The queen is also be a glossy black colour but appears to have slight brown stripes on her abdomen. The queen can reach 6-9mm in length and is smaller as a new queen. When a queen is fertilised she removes her wings and digests her wing muscles as food over the winter.
  • Drones - Drones are only produced by queens when the nuptial flights are approaching. They appear with a dark glossy body with a different shape from the workers, almost resembling a wasp appearance. They have wing muscles which stand out from the rest of the body. They are 5-7mm long and have delicate wings.
...... Black garden ants often explore their surroundings quite extensively during early summer months in an effort to increase the food supply to their queen and her young, and also as a way of testing new ground in preparation for the nests' summer flight. In some cases, these explorations lead to a burrowing through mortar and brick.

 


(Red highlight mine)

Wow! Learned they live 50 years!

Well, that explains the various sizes...... meaning my ant mounds are older?! Doesn't matter how old they are, I declared war when they decided to come in my house.

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We have had flies bad this year and they dive bomb you and bite. I noticed an ant bed by where we park the car hubby said he would pick up poison. No mice yet, hopefully the inside cat will take care of them. Spiders are another thing we deal with. You think as many spiders as we have we wouldn't have the fly problem. I feel like I am going through the 10 plagues like Pharaoh.

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  • 1 month later...

We have had flies bad this year and they dive bomb you and bite. I noticed an ant bed by where we park the car hubby said he would pick up poison. No mice yet, hopefully the inside cat will take care of them. Spiders are another thing we deal with. You think as many spiders as we have we wouldn't have the fly problem. I feel like I am going through the 10 plagues like Pharaoh.

 

So, maybe it is not just us. The flies here are relentless! Neighbor has 2 dogs and they like to poo in the area near our back porch. We actually went and asked them to clean it up or let us do it. Killed over 150 flies in one day and over 100 the next day, and that was just in the time we sat on the porch swing with guests.

 

Hope you got those ants taken care of. By the time we were done, we found/killed over 20 ant hills in our yard. I have noticed a few ants again... hoping they understand I do not want them to bite me or they will all die. If they leave me alone, I usually leave them alone. (Red ant are a different story... I will search the neighborhood and poison them.)

 

DH & I have been commenting about all the "plagues" this year. :behindsofa:

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I usually have 1-2 spiders in the house a year, that I see. This year I've killed about 10. They are really big for a spider and real fleshy and fast. About the size of a quarter or bigger. Almost rubbery looking. At first they looked sort of brownish but the last few I killed were black. I saw one in the sink a couple of weeks ago so I'm assuming it came up through the drain. I only hope they don't bite because they look like they would hurt. I did see one of those spiders in the garage and I watched it go back outside under the closed garage door. I didn't see any ants in the house this year though and only a couple of flies. Maybe the spiders ate them before I saw any?

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http://www.spiderzrule.com/giant.htm

This is a very comprehensive site of spiders.

If what you have is a Hobo Spider , that is what CGA thinks bit her.at least

that is what she found under her bed... It caused a very painful sore that

took weeks to heal.

 

On the ants..I experimented when I found the imported fire ants along my foundation.

I took garlic powder , mixed it with baking soda and sprinkled it on their nests. Then I

added a bit of water, they did not like the dry mix and died when I added the water.

I see no sign of them now.

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