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Not sure which type of ants you have, but you can try an appropriate bait in a few of these stations around your yard.
Gourmet Liquid is a borate-based liquid bait that works well IME, or you could try a homemade outdoor sweet liquid bait with dilute simple syrup and borax: 2c water, 1/2c sugar, 1/2c borax.
Borate-based baits might not be enough for the more aggressive ants (fire & carpenter), and you may need to go with something stronger if it doesn't; but since baits are contained and borax is less harmful to pets/children/environment it's best to start with that before calling in the big guns and spraying your entire yard with one of the synthetic pesticides.
I'm not that familiar with Entomology but they're those tiny black ants. If that narrows it down any, what are their species name?
Thank you for the link. Currently have our yearly infestation. The tiny ones on the counter are easily gotten rid of with Terro product. But the large black ones generally only make it in after a really heavy summer rain - I generally just wait until they decide to leave... but would rather not. I have not found a product that would work on these big ones. (they are huge) These things even crawl on walls and drop on you I will try these methods.
My apt. has had ants since the apt. beneath me was vacated (and then the landlord spent 2 weeks renovating).
However, the number of ants has been manageable & I try to find the cheapest, easiest and least toxic method of dealing with it.
I laid out fresh whole cloves on countertop (read online that they don't like those),
and have been manually obliterating the ants as I see them, with masking tape.
It's gruesome (and I don't feel good about that), but has immediate results.
Again, this instance is only a moderate problem
(for me, it's a crisis, but intellectually I recognize the situation could be far, far more severe)-
so my minor efforts are effective enough, it seems.
Can't find anyplace that they're coming in from/through, so can't use a "stopping-it-at-the-source" method.
Here's a great article on identifying whether you have Argentine Ants or if the ants you're seeing are a less destructive species. Argentines are typically a brownish-red and don't appear black.
There are a few different species of small black ants that typically invade homes. Check out this article and see if you can identify which you have because it helps you put bait in the most effective areas.
For nearly all ants, it's better to use a food-based bait (borate, fipronil, etc) that the workers take back to the nest and feed to the rest of colony so everyone dies. While this temporarily increases the number of ants you have to deal with (woohoo, free food!!), it will kill off the whole nest. Spraying normally only the kills the foragers, and many times this will make the queen produce more, including a new queen for a satellite colony... you don't want that!!! If you must spray because they aren't responding to the bait, it's best if you can locate the nest(s) and use the spray to completely saturate it and the surrounding area. Once you do that, then you can set up a perimeter in/around your home to keep scouts and foragers from a new colony from entering your home, which will make any new queens think twice about setting up a new nest nearby.
My apt. has had ants since the apt. beneath me was vacated (and then the landlord spent 2 weeks renovating).
However, the number of ants has been manageable & I try to find the cheapest, easiest and least toxic method of dealing with it.
I laid out fresh whole cloves on countertop (read online that they don't like those),
and have been manually obliterating the ants as I see them, with masking tape.
It's gruesome (and I don't feel good about that), but has immediate results.
Again, this instance is only a moderate problem
(for me, it's a crisis, but intellectually I recognize the situation could be far, far more severe)-
so my minor efforts are effective enough, it seems.
Can't find anyplace that they're coming in from/through, so can't use a "stopping-it-at-the-source" method.
I'm willing to bet that they are traveling between the apartments along the water pipes and wiring, then traveling along behins baseboards and such. It's nearly impossible to deal with an infestation in the walls when you don't control the whole building. You can try bait traps in your apartment, but it won't get rid of the ants completely unless everyone does it and keeps doing it until the nest(s) are gone
Thank you for the link. Currently have our yearly infestation. The tiny ones on the counter are easily gotten rid of with Terro product. But the large black ones generally only make it in after a really heavy summer rain - I generally just wait until they decide to leave... but would rather not. I have not found a product that would work on these big ones. (they are huge) These things even crawl on walls and drop on you I will try these methods.
99% of the time, if you see a large black ant it's a Carpenter Ant.
If they only come in after heavy rains, or during droughty periods, then it's likely only foragers and you don't have a huge nest somewhere in or around your house. HOWEVER, if you see them year after year and after every rainstorm, you probably have a nest closer to your house than is advisable.
Foraging carpenter ants don't really do much damage (other than freaking you out!) but a nest can do MAJOR structural damage to your home. They typically like to start burrowing their galleries into moist wood near ground contact (much like termites) so you might want to look around your foundation or crawlspace to see if you can see any frass sawdusty mounds/trails with bits of dead ants in it. If you see frass on or in your structure -- treat immediately because they are highly destructive. Carpenter ants can hollow out a 4x4 post in less than a week!
Yup, the AC unit in one of my apartments in Texas was completely infested with crazy ants. Between the crazy ants in the AC and the fire ants in the landscaping, I was never so glad to leave an apartment in my life!
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I will try these methods.
