Ant problem - any advice?

[W8taminute]

So our house has been invaded by carpenter ants as of late.  During the fall of last year we started to see the occasional ant in the kitchen and it wasn't anything serious.  Lately however, even with the below 30 degree temperatures, they have appeared in more numbers.  In fact two weeks ago I counted about 30 of these suckers munching on an opened box of brown sugar in our lazy susan we had forgotten about. 

After a thorough cleaning of all of our kitchen cabinets we still see them coming.  So yesterday I decided I'm going to contact an exterminator.  My question is do any of you have experience with this problem?  Any advice on what to look for in an exterminator?  My greatest worry is that I'll get ripped off and still have an ant problem if I hire an exterminator.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Excessive use of Ant killer RAID spray and some ant traps took care of them when I had an infestation in my place a few years ago.

If that doesn't work, you can always go full Death Star, get yourself a case of beer and a fresnel lens and make a day of it.

[steve58]

I've used this ant gel with great success. The ants take it back to the nest to kill the ones you don't see.

https://www.amazon.com/Syngenta-68078-Advion-Singular-Tube/dp/B08C3PPYSV/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1GGIALTBM1T7P&keywords=advion+ant+gel&qid=1675697537&sprefix=advion+ant+gel%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Syngenta-Advion-tubes-grams-each/dp/B00TXFE4RI/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=advion+ant+gel&qid=1675698328&sr=8-6

[Sir Slash]

That is cool about the Fire Ants. My Daddy used to say put boiling hot water on the mound. This works very well, a couple of buckets of very hot water will kill thousands of them at a time. The problem is if you don't get the Queen, you're just wasting your time really. Another old Cracker trick is to hammer a PVC pipe down into their mound and pour gasoline or kerosene into it. It seeps into the soil and will kill the queen if it gets far enough down. It will also kill your grass however so maybe not a good thing if you like green.

For Carpenters, a pest control guy gave me some bait they were supposed to be attracted to around their nest if you can find it...didn't work too well though. The Ortho Fire Ant powder I use however is so noxious that I use it to keep the Carpenters away from anywhere they can get inside, they will tunnel or chew a way into your home sometimes. Usually here in Fla. they will move-on fairly quickly to somewhere else so they're only a temporary problem.

I would try to find where they're getting in and keep it sprayed real good as a start.

[JasonPratt]

Aside from hiring a guy to go around the bottom of our house two or three times a year to lay down a chemical barrier, we like to use Bengal spray on any detected ant trails. This breaks up their own chemical trail and they'll take it back into the nest. (Worth keeping in mind that if you kill enough of the nest, the queen eventually starves.)

What you really want to make sure about, is that they don't set up nests inside the walls of your house! We had to have the ceiling in our den completely removed and refurbished due to two or more nests of infestation that had set up. Nowadays there are special ultrasound rigs which not only hear them, of course, but detect the water content from the nests, so they can be zeroed in on.

Electronic pest repellers have been the new hotness for a while. Supposedly they work on some insects (e.g. lice), not only small mammals (e.g. mice and rats). I can tell you they don't seem to work on ladybugs! -- but they do seem to work on mice, at least. Both at home, and (with a larger set of weaker ones) at our old office, they've driven out mice and kept them out over the winter when normally plenty of them would shack up and repopulate. ;)

On the other hand, I have no idea what long term exposure to Chinese-made random loud ultasurnd sill doto a peasongns

[Gusington]

Also - definitely make sure there are no more sacks of sugar lying around. Also check for any damage. Carpenter ants can be as bad as termites.

[SirAndrewD]

In my old house the little carpenter ants were almost impossible to kill.  Yeah, I spent a bit on exterminators and they might give a short reprieve but the little blighters always found a way to come back. 

They're my ex-wife's problem now. 

I upgraded though.  In my new place I woke up in bed a few months ago covered in fire ants.  Turns out they had a nest against the wall downstairs from my bedroom. 

Fortunately nuking that nest with bait did the trick.  This year at least.

[Gusington]

^That...is terrible

[W8taminute]

Well the exterminator came today and checked out my house.  Thankfully he doesn't seem to think they've created a nest within my homes walls.  He laid some potent poison around the kitchen and said they'll take this "food" source back to the nest and feed it to the pupae hopefully killing the colony.  They'll come back in March when the weather is warmer and do an outside perimeter spraying. 

Hopefully this will take care of my problem.  Total cost for all this = $379.00

[Sir Slash]

Thanks W8, your Exterminator bought everybody at Outback Steakhouse dinner tonight. The Ribeye was just right.     SirAndrew you're lucky those Fire Ants didn't attack you. They've been known to do that to people asleep even causing some deaths in nursing homes. They are vicious little bastards.

[W8taminute]

Thanks W8, your Exterminator bought everybody at Outback Steakhouse dinner tonight. The Ribeye was just right.     SirAndrew you're lucky those Fire Ants didn't attack you. They've been known to do that to people asleep even causing some deaths in nursing homes. They are vicious little bastards.

Haha!  Well I hope he got you a good dinner too. 

[Gusington]

Wow, 379.00 is...a lot, W8. Shop around for a yearly plan.

I have one through a local company called Hollenbeck, after getting really screwed by Ehrlich with no-show exterminators who claimed they did come to my house, when I was there, and even showed 'pictures' of the work getting done. All lies and Ehrlich could not care less.

Anyway...I get one treatment per season to my house foundation and can add traps and other interior protection as needed, usually at no cost. So 4 treatments per year @ about 150.00 per treatment.

Just don't go with Ehrlich :) Ever.

[Pete Dero]

Just don't go with Ehrlich :) Ever.

Did you know ehrlich is German for honest  ?

[Gusington]

I did not. They are not living up to their namesake 

[W8taminute]

Wow that's a big difference in pricing Gus.  I don't plan on keeping a yearly subscription with these guys but if I still have the problem then yeah, maybe I better shop around.  The only thing though is after reading all the reviews the guys I choose got the most positive ratings. 

I saw a lot of people complain about no shows with other exterminators which scared me off, thus not even bothering to price shop.