Yet more ants :-(

[Harry Bloomfield]

I noticed this, this morning, by the front door...

It looks just like pepper from a pepper grinder and just outside the door, hundreds of ants. Some while ago, I spotted something similar but much more thinly distributed, on the kitchen window sill inside. It had been cleaned off a few times, but kept reappearing. I suspect that was due to ants too.

What is this material? It has not come from higher up the wall that I see, it's perfectly dry and just vacuums up.

 

[JohnD]

you're sure it's not woodlouse droppings? they only eat the fungus from rotting wood so will be found if there is a leak.

Nippon liquid cleared up my ants in a few days.

 

[kettlejim]

I've had success with so called "Ant powder" which is usually deltamethrin, which is a pyrethroid, as its active ingredient
They made a similar type of dust although not sure what it came from - it looks like earth but am not sure

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

you're sure it's not woodlouse droppings? they only eat the fungus from rotting wood so will be found if there is a leak.

Nippon liquid cleared up my ants in a few days.

Fairly sure, there is no damp wood or moisture in the area and there is a thin trail of the dust under the door, along the step and they have excavated soil out from between two path slabs directly in front of the door. I spotted that last problem, a couple of weeks ago and dusted the area then.

 

[conny]

We have had them in our kitchen/breakfast room over the past week or two. Hundreds of single ants and a large number of flying ants. These were usually hoovered up quite quickly to try and prevent new sites being established. The crazy/annoying thing is, my wife has cleaning OCD and every day she thoroughly cleans the whole house upstairs and down, so finding ants is really soul destroying. I tried some Nippon powder which was just out of date but it had no effect. We tried the gel behind the cupboard kick board but they still came out. A few days ago I bought some fresh powder, (not Nippon), and decided to lay it behind the kickboard and under any gaps in skirtings. When I removed the kick board there were hundreds, if not thousands of the buggers stuck in the gel and the others were simply using them as a bridge. In the back corner under the freezer unit was a large area of what looked like cement dust. Managed to get a vacuum nozzle in and hoovered up about 90% of the dust and thats when the ants started streaming out of a hole in the lowest brickwork. Managed to get a large dose of powder into the hole and the surrounding area and we have only seen the odd one or two with no flying ones. Just hope they have managed to transport enough of the powder back to the nest to finish it off.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I've never seen a flying ant - I probably wouldn't know to recognise them, but a local friend at the other end of the village says he gets them.

 

[sxturbo]

this year they seem to be especially bad,

nothing seems to get rid of the ruddy things either. i've tried everything.

very soul destroying.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

this year they seem to be especially bad,

nothing seems to get rid of the ruddy things either. i've tried everything.

very soul destroying.

I just have a trace of the 'dust' on top of the skirting this morning and no sign of any ants outside the door, so I'm assuming the dusting I gave them worked for now at least.

 

[JP_]

I've had so many ants this year, thankfully outside, but there seems to be a nest just about every metre. And all the pavements around here have those piles of sand where the ants have dug themselves free.

ANT INVASION!!

 

[JohnD]

i've tried everything.

even Nippon liquid?

 

[sxturbo]

even Nippon liquid?

Yep, just don't touch anything

 

[Old Salt]

My missus likes the round bait boxes with a peel off lid, couple by their runs works a treat.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Last infestation, I saved up the Lidl fresh orange bottle tops to put nippon in indoors. That wasn't that effective, so I ended up with a wet cream of icing sugar and borax, cotton wool balls dipped in it, then left where they congregated. That finally got rid of them in the kitchen.

 

[sxturbo]

My missus likes the round bait boxes with a peel off lid, couple by their runs works a treat.

Last infestation, I saved up the Lidl fresh orange bottle tops to put nippon in indoors. That wasn't that effective, so I ended up with a wet cream of icing sugar and borax, cotton wool balls dipped in it, then left where they congregated. That finally got rid of them in the kitchen.

I've tried these and still nothing....

They are no longer coming in the house which is good, there just destroying the garden now

 

[Old Salt]

Boiling kettle