How do I get rid of ants?

Raid traps are the best. They take the poison home and don’t come back. Unfortunately, you’ll probably need to do it seasonally unless you can find and destroy the nest. And even then, they may come back.

If you do not have pets or small children, you can get the paintable ant poison and paint the bottom of your baseboards and other ant-likely entrance points. I found that to be especially helpful at my last apartment. At the current place, Raid hotels took care of them.

After they are gone, wash thoroughly the area. You want to disrupt the pheromone trail they left behind so that the next set of ants to stumble upon it doesn’t have a map straight through your kitchen.

a bazooka… might cause some callatoral damage but you can surely bet those ants won’t come back.

but one a different note. Raid traps do well. if you own a house or you rent and have a yard, either hire an exterminator or get your landlord to get one… that’s really the only way to make sure the nest goes away.

I haven’t had any major ant problems, but my mom swears by Orange Guard – it’s safe to use around food, kids and pets, and it works wonders to get rid of all sorts of bugs. If you think they’re coming from outside, I’d just spray it all around the baseboards and anywhere else you think they might be coming from. Good luck!

I grew up in SF and ants are a big problem there, I think almost everyone has them. We always used Grant’s ant bait stakes, which you can also put outside (extra effective if you know where they’re coming from). Like EmpressPixie said, they take it back to the hive and it continues the job there.

Recently, I tried the Raid kind when I was staying at a friend’s and it really was not very effective. They didn’t seem to be interested in the bait.

you could eat them.

@ragingloli That is definitely one option. Have you got any recipes?

fry them en masse in a wok with rice and vegetables, salt, pepper

Squish! Squish! Squish!

Repeat as neccesary…

Terro works great. It’s bait that they bring back to the queen, so it doesn’t kill them instantly—it gets them at the source, so to speak.

When I continued to get ants around my house, I went out every moring and evening with a just boiled kettle and some bleach and poured it on the routes I knew the ants took (around the edges of my house) I did this for about a week and then I did’t see them again and they seemed to stay away the following summer too!

I put bay leaves where I see them coming, they come in the window above my kitchen sink, so just set a couple bay leaves on the window sill. It works. Apparently ants hate bay leaves.

Diazinon Crystals…

@knitfroggy so if you put bay leaves in your window sill, does that make it into a ‘bay window?’ these puns are gonna be the death of me.

@evelyns_pet_zebra ^^ good one