Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We've been fighting fire ants in our new house (7 months old) for over three months now, and I'm not sure what to try next. The ants are under the foundation and are coming up where the pipes enter through the slab. We're under contract with a local pest control company who's treated the yard and I've not seen an ant in our yard in months, but we're seeing fire ants daily in the bathrooms.
The biggest influx was through the sand trap in our master bath, but our bug guy sprayed Termidor in and around the trap which seemed to fix it for a week or two, but now they're coming in through the pipes that feed our bathroom sinks, washing machine, and now even around our toilets. Termidor for those who don't know is a poison that the ants walk through without knowing it (unlike a bait that attracts them), then they track it back to their nest and rub on other ants. It breaks down their respiratory system in a day or so. Problem tough is it doesn't detour them, so they still come in even though they'll hopefully die at some point.
I don't want to use any baits that will attract more ants, and given we can't physically get under the house (one story on foundation slab) I'm not sure what to try next. We have two small kids so this has me so stressed out.
I can just imagine this HUGE fire ant nest growing under the house...
Thanks for any advise or even words of wisdom. I'm literally at my wits end on this.
Why isn't your pest control company taking care of this?
The problem is I think our case is unprecedented to some degree. Everything I read talks about plugging outside holes, keeping your place clean, treating outside, etc, but in our case the ants are entering through the walls via the pipes in the foundation. Termidor being sprayed by our bug guy where the pipes come up has helped keep it under control, but it hasn't eliminated the problem.
Maybe we're just not giving the Termidor enough time to work, which is what the bug guy said, but even he said he's dumbfounded on why they're so aggressive.
Has anyone had or heard of fire ants doing this? And if so is there any action that might involve getting under the foundation to treat the ants? I hate the thought of drilling into the foundation, but I'm at the point of doing whatever it takes.
If you had the house built, you may have a case against the builder. The dirt under houses has to be poisoned before construction begins, unless you want to have problems like yours. Poison is a strong word, but you don't want ants getting a foothold. Borates are commonly used, as they are otherwise fairly innocuous, have no fumes, and can exist under a foundation unchanged for years.
Fire ants are far more of a danger to kids than some pesticides. Problem is, the range of them is larger than the average building lot, so even though you may not have mounds, they can still be in easy colonization range. They can be tunneling five feet underground and not have a trace on the surface.
You need to bait, but the bait can be outdoors. You also need to get co-operation from neighbors to poison any mounds in the area about once a month. Bottom line, you will not eradicate them from an area ever. You have to minimize the population enough so that they don't colonize your house.
I use a three pronged approach with a few chemicals;
First, using a 2 gallon pump sprayer filled with ortho max on warm days in spring, I wander around a 200' radius looking for mounds. After drawing a circle around the mound with the spray, I plunge the wand directly into the mound and kill most of the ants in it. This does not ill the colony, only reduces the numbers of ants and viable eggs. You'll get tons of advice to mix mounds, use hot water, use vinegar, etc.. It may be satisfying, but ultimately, many of the eggs will remain viable and simply be moved. In the country, ants mound along fences, because those areas are not disturbed by plowing. Any scuffing or digging in a mound just makes the ants move. It may seem like the mound is dead after any of those treatments, but it is just a couple hundred feet away. What you kill in front of you is about all that you really kill.
Second, I establish a 10' wide zone around the house, where I rotate the sprays between the ortho max, Zep termite/ant killer, and Bengal dust fire ant killer. Don't use more than the suggested amounts and don't "double-up." Just find the protection life and spray on the last day of that (sometimes a little sooner if it rains a lot.) I also extend this barrier into the crawl space.
Third, I bait with a weak boric acid mixture mixed into various baits - animal fats and drippings from meat, sugary solutions, and anything I notice ants going after within the house. I put out a dozen baits at a time outside in places that animals and kids can't easily access.
In your case, I would buy a container of boric acid, and load up any cracks where the ants enter with it, then seal over the crack with paint or caulking. As I said, it has no odor, and being sealed in, won't even be an issue for you.
Worst case scenarios, holes are drilled in the slab and insecticide injected into the holes, which are then sealed.
You have to be aggressive with fire ants and keep up a schedule. At first, mounds get killed once a week or every two or three days. Then you can ease back to once a month, and often during winter to once every few months. Just keep at them especially in the spring. Good luck. Mother nature is brutal.
I can't say for sure that the fire ant problem is gone, but our bug guy came in on Dec 22nd and sprayed inside the wall voids behind each sink with some chemical he said would kill the ants in about 30 minutes, then he heavily baited outside the house. We were seeing temps in the 60's and 70's plus it was rather dry during this time, so I hoped the ants would be forging and pick-up the bait.
We didn't see any ants until the week after Christmas when I saw probably 10 ants in a weeks time... then nothing. January I saw two ants, but that was the first or second week and both were much larger than most.
I'd like to think the fire ants took in the bait or finally got into the termidor in the sand traps (or both) and the colony was wiped out. If this happened then the influx we saw week after Christmas may have been workers trying to find food anyplace they could and the two larger ants last month may have been stragglers.
At any rate we're at almost a month with seeing nothing which is the longest we've gone. Granted we're in Winter, but other than a cold spell last week where we went below freezing for a few days and got some snow it's been in the 50s through 70's more days than not. In Texas we don't have much of a winter, and I have seen other fire ant mounds around the neighborhood.
So is this a good sign??? Fire ants don't hibernate from what I've read, so if they were living all snug under the foundation I'd think they'd still be coming through.
I can't say for sure that the fire ant problem is gone, but our bug guy came in on Dec 22nd and sprayed inside the wall voids behind each sink with some chemical he said would kill the ants in about 30 minutes, then he heavily baited outside the house. We were seeing temps in the 60's and 70's plus it was rather dry during this time, so I hoped the ants would be forging and pick-up the bait.
We didn't see any ants until the week after Christmas when I saw probably 10 ants in a weeks time... then nothing. January I saw two ants, but that was the first or second week and both were much larger than most.
I'd like to think the fire ants took in the bait or finally got into the termidor in the sand traps (or both) and the colony was wiped out. If this happened then the influx we saw week after Christmas may have been workers trying to find food anyplace they could and the two larger ants last month may have been stragglers.
At any rate we're at almost a month with seeing nothing which is the longest we've gone. Granted we're in Winter, but other than a cold spell last week where we went below freezing for a few days and got some snow it's been in the 50s through 70's more days than not. In Texas we don't have much of a winter, and I have seen other fire ant mounds around the neighborhood.
So is this a good sign??? Fire ants don't hibernate from what I've read, so if they were living all snug under the foundation I'd think they'd still be coming through.
Anyway, just a quick update... Thanks -
All this points to a sure sign you will be getting mice in your walls in the next couple days.
Terrible story. That would definitely suck. Made me think of that new show call "Infested" on Animal Planet. In some of those the people actually decide to move since they can't beat the bugs.
I have an home made ant killer that works with carpenter and grease ants. Mix a table spoon of peanut butter with a teaspoon of honey amd then mix in about a tablespoon of some good old Borax soap power. Works everytime. The ants will form a line and the one who feeds on the plate will pass it by mouth to guy behind him and so on. Some ants die at the petri dish but others takle it back for the queen where she ingests it, and whammmo, she dies and no more ants.
Try different parts of the house when placing the mixture. I use the screw on tops from jars after I mix the concoction and then spread it out on the jar covers.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
