How often do we need to spray for bugs? (rental, house)

[Nancy in Nokomis]

We are in charge of the bug control at our rental house. Starting to see a lot of ants -

[nphomeowner]

We have a contract for pest control and they come and spray inside and out every three months, it's $75 per visit. Ants however I spray with home defense, let it sit then clean it up. We get what they call ghost ants, tiny tiny things you can barely see.

[pcozad1]

I use terro ant killer a couple times a year. Just keep it away from pets.

[TamRE]

What type of ants are you seeing? Are they in the home or outside in the yard? Pest control companies usually do it quarterly. If you are having red ants in the yard then you can buy stuff at Home Depot to sprinkle on the ant hills. If you are having tiny ghost ants in the house, then you want to use a product called Terro. It is a liquid that you put on cardboard and place around the house like in the kitchen and bathroom. Leave it there for a couple of months and don't spray ghost ants. You want them to take the bait back to the nest and kill the colony. There are also carpenter ants which are very large. If you have carpenter ants, you want to hire a pest control company. There are so many types of ants down here in Florida and they each require a different method of treatment.

You can use the spray to do around the exterior of the home for general pest control. You can get that at Home Depot too. A pest control company will not only do the outside perimeter but will do the soffit and fascia and eaves, porches, garage doors, etc. Does your rental have termite protection. That is something else to consider.

[nphomeowner]

Since it is a rental, you would think the landlord would do termite protection. It is after all to protect HIS investment. I wouldn't think a tenant would be responsible to pay for that.

[Nancy in Nokomis]

Well - two older women own the home and since we were in a hurry and wanted a home with a pool in a certain school district and had a large dog we agreed to do stuff that a tenant normally would not do.

[TravelerGirl101]

Spraying is only a temporary solution. It's not going to last very long. Those ants will outsmart the spray!! *evil laugh*. Honestly, unless you have other bugs besides ants I wouldn't spray. We used to spray quite often and it was getting very pricy and wasn't really helping keep the ants out all that much.

I had a post about this a while ago - an "how to get rid of ants" post. You can see it here: //www.city-data.com/forum/punta...6075-ants.html . While it ended up not being much of a natural way to get rid of the ants, it was spray free. I just picked up some Boric Acid from the hardware store and mixed it with a little strawberry jelly and placed it on a strip of tape wherever you see the ants. The ants will come in hoards to eat this sweet stuff. You'll see them marching in. They eat it and take it back to their little nests --and they will never be seen again! At least not for a couple months!! It's a cheap, easy way to get rid of the ants and it works!!

If you have fire ants the fire ant killer does work pretty good too. Don't use that stuff in the house though. Just use it outside and put the powder on the hills.