Fire ants

[angryyew]

I think my yard has more fire ants than grass, but they don't seem any better or worse than last year. They tend to come and go. I've had problems with them in the house, in my clothes, even in my car.

I bought a jug of general purpose bug killer by ortho that's made to be sprayed around the baseboards and such and that does kill the ants (and numerous other pests, with the side effect being that I'm always sweeping/vaccuming up dead bugs) and seems to help some with keeping them from coming in, but it only helps somewhat.

I also use ant traps, which again seem to reduce them, but doesn't entirely eliminate them and I use a powder made by ortho for fire ant mounds that I put on the mounds, which does a great job of killing off the ants in that mound, but again they always crop up somewhere else.

I've even had the things take out my air conditioner a couple of times. I'm not sure there's much to be done to completely get rid of them. I'm careful to keep my car super clean (no more fast food bags or crumbs) and do the best I can to eliminate food sources and such in the house, but there's only so much you can do.

[jcfg]

From all the research I've done, killing the queen is the most important part of managing fire ant colonies.

The day after my first bite at our new house, my husband bought treatment from Lowe's. He treated the entire yard and the active mounds went away. But a few weeks later, new mounds appeared and we found out from Triangle Pest Control that our treatment had just forced the queen to relocate instead of killing her.

We got the Top Choice plan from Triangle Pest Control. They treated the whole yard and also spot-treated the active mounds. It is guaranteed for a year and they will come back as often as necessary to spot-treat any new mounds. My husband said he saw a pile of dead ants near the last mound, though, so I'm very optimistic. Hopefully I can start going outside in my yard again soon.