Oh god the ants! THE ANTS

SniperGuy

So I recently got a cat, and set it's cat food out in this little back room that connects to the backyard and my room. I hear the cat whining one day and go in there and his food is molested in ants! I have since moved his food to a different room, sprinkled the perimeter with cinnamon as per googling suggestions, but I keep seeing the little bastards! They're tiny black ants, and I've seen 4-5 stragglers in the back room, and a group of 15-25ish at the bottom of the wall where my bed is! I'm in college renting, so I have a box spring and a mattress lying on the floor in the corner.

Also! I saw a tiny round black thing on my monitor, and another on the side of my mattress (nothing on my sheets). I am now terrified that I have bed bugs, and that ants are going to eat my ears. I've sprinkled cinnamon around the walls of my room now as well, but what else can I do to halt this southern bug apocalypse? It's warming up outside!

THE REST WILL BE HERE SOON!

Skoal Cat

You need poison! Kill those bastards!
If you see a line of them, which you would if its bad, blast the to hell and back with hairspray. Follow the line blasting all the way. Get as many as you can.

If they are super tiny they are probably sugar ants. You live in the south so this is likely. Sugar ants SUCK but are no real concern outside of ewwwww.


edit: I guess they aren't actually sugar ants, but thats what folk call 'em

Andorien

Get a can of RAID, spray a small circle on the ground where your cat's food will be, as well as any entryway you see them coming in/lurking about.

There are few things as satisfying as finding a saturated line of ants in your home and dispensing chemical death upon them.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

The only ultimately final way to get rid of them is to cut off access to whatever they're eating. If it's mostly cat food, keep it out of reach and feed the cat at specific times during the day. Keeping your food sealed and away is a good step too; if there's nothing to eat, the ants will stop showing up.

You can also use poison, but with house animals around you'll need to keep a close eye on it. I forget what it's called, but you can buy a little tube of ant poison goop for about four bucks that they think is food. This has the benefit of 1) killing them off and 2) keeping them out of your actual food.

Hahnsoo1

The thing about ants is that they are VERY good about rerouting themselves. Cinnamon just repels them, and doesn't take care of the root problem. Either you need to kill the colony or seal off your residence against ants. Find where they are coming from, and caulk the hole. Then wait... they can and will find another entrance. You may end up having to do this many many times.

If you just want to keep the ants away from the cat food, you can put the cat dish in another larger dish filled with water, as a sort of "moat". Ants can't swim.

SniperGuy

Well I can run up to walmart, but ours has what appears to be a pitifully bad ant killer section. I'll definitely get some caulk as I can see where they're coming up from. There's a crawlspace under the house you access from outside, and there's little wall cracks they're coming through.

Should I be concerned about bed bugs at all?

edit: and recommendations on exact poison products to buy? Online if possible. Can you do that online?

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Terro is the name of the stuff I used last time I had a problem.

SmokeStacks

I've used these kinds of traps before:



The bait is inside, so they're safe to use around small pets. You generally put them along walls and in corners where you've seen ants, then make sure to keep any of your food off of the floor. The ants crawl in, take the poison back to their nest, they eat it, and everybody dies.

They take a few days, but it beats spraying chemicals all over the place.

TNTrooper

Eat It. Eat it, You Nasty Pig. wrote: »

Terro is the name of the stuff I used last time I had a problem.

Terro is like going nuclear on ants only without the radiation and other nasty side effects. It's awesome.

ihmmy

I use Diatomaceous Earth on my ant villains. Sprinkle some in the house in problem areas, then go powder the heck out of the ant hills in the backyard. It has bonus points for being animal safe as there's a cat and a small dog in the house.

Esh

Andorien wrote: »

Get a can of RAID, spray a small circle on the ground where your cat's food will be, as well as any entryway you see them coming in/lurking about.

There are few things as satisfying as finding a saturated line of ants in your home and dispensing chemical death upon them.

Absolutely do not do this. EVER. Spraying toxic chemicals near the cats food? Really?

Use Diatomaceous Earth like ihmmy suggested. It's pet safe and will take care of the ants.

Maybe put the cats food up on a little stool where the cat can reach it (like 6 inches off the ground) but you can either put the legs in little bowls of water or wrap really sticky tape around them.

dukederek

Last time my folks had an issue with this they got something with a name like "Ant Away" or something stupid. Anyway, after countless bottles of powders and kettles of boiling water and bleach they were about ready to trust something that came in a 50ml bottle. It was some kind of sweet liquid that the ants take back to the queen and then everybody dies. It was startlingly effective, not in an instant way like RAID but there were basically no ants at all after about 3 days.

Hevach

SmokeStacks wrote: »

I've used these kinds of traps before:

I've used the same brand successfully. It takes a few days to get working, and isn't 100% right off the bat so put down fresh traps even after you stop seeing ants.

Long term, get a good sized tupperware or rubbermaid container and seal the cat food up. The bit in the bowl isn't really going to support an infestation, they're just hitting it because it's there. They're actually going to be living on something more substantial and constantly available. Renting, there's only so much you can do if somebody else has terrible food storage habits, but take every step you can and what little food is out won't be too likely to draw them.

Oricalm

This is actually a problem I'm about to deal with as well, minus the cat part. Ants are getting into a house I'm purchasing around a door above a crawlspace. The Terminex Inspector gave me these tips:

1) DO NOT SPRAY - I was told this was the worst idea I could have. Some ant colonies, when antagonized through spraying, will split into multiple colonies, just making your problem worse. If you can catch a couple and identify them on the terminex website, you might be able to get a better idea of what to use against them.

2) Be careful with traps - Some traps are pheromone based. If this is the case, they will actually attract ants which is kind of counter-productive. If possible, put these sorts of things outside to draw the ants away from the house

3) Clear any surrounding vegetation - The house I'm getting is a foreclosure and the back yard is overgrown. He said priority 1 should be to clear it all out. If you have any heavy growth near the house, you may want to trim it back.

4) Use Liquid or granule poisons - He advised that right now, the ants are looking for food double time because they're coming out of winter hibernation. The liquid stuff is "sweeter" so it will be gobbled up by them super fast. He said that after I put some down, they'll most likely swarm it, but to leave them be. They'll take it back to the nest and it'll kill them all. From the looks of it, Terro offers these kinds of things so that's probably your best bet. I've never personally used it though.

MKR

I tried caulk when I had ant problems. Ate right through the stuff overnight.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

I had ant problems at a girlfriend's place about a year back. I identified where they were getting in, immediately cleaned up all areas and disposed of anything they may find attractive. Cut off their point of entry using the cinnamon trick and cordoned off the throng of intruders with chalk then began the long, arduous task of taking a damp sponge and sweeping them up--one spongeful at a time--and shaking them loose outside again.

After about two nights of this, with no return visitors, I laid down a light barrier of poison spray to prevent their entry again. I had about a 90% success rate doing this. As mentioned above, they rerouted a couple of times, but I was persistent and, eventually, the victor.

I have a hard time killing things for just being things the only way they know how.

Also, the cat food was molested in ants? Are you sure that is how that works?

DoraB

Diatomaceous Earth can really help if you know where they're coming in and where you want to keep them away from, but there's nothing like an ant invasion to help you discover all the little cracks and crevices you never knew your home had. What I've done is to place the cat's foot in a bowl or something that's resting on a plate or something filled with water. The ants didn't appear to be able to cross it. Of course, they just go looking elsewhere. So what I used was this: http://www.terro.com/

It's the same sugar/borax mix everyone recommends making, but for me this is a lot simpler since the mix is perfect (neither too much poison that they die immediately and start staying away, nor too little that all you're doing is feeding them). The ants go nuts for it, and it's safe to use around pets... the little container is surprisingly hardy at being knocked around and not spilling anything because of the way it's made. It might take a while, but if you keep seeing persistent ants then Terro is, in my experience, the way to go and kill the whole colony.

WildEEP

If your in suburbia, Dump a bag of sugar at the far extremes of your property.
Ants are just like any other creature out there trying to make their way - they don't understand the whole land of the giants thing...so figure out what they want. They want the mountain of food thats suddenly appeared in front of them.
Give them a new mountain somewhere else. We started giving critters reasons to congregate away from our house and its worked surprisingly well.

Skoal Cat

That is a brilliant idea

Selner

I hate ants .

I have used this stuff in the past:
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM685542001P?prdNo=8&blockNo=8&blockType=G8

Ant bait stuff that claims to kill entire colonies or whatever.

I also keep a can of raid on hand, and during the spring/summer months I spray outside. I have cats as well so I don't spray inside very much.

I noticed once that ants were getting in the windows somehow, so I sprayed the windows on the outside to put a stop to that. Now I spray the outside of the sliding glass door, as they get in there sometimes.

Xaquin

TNTrooper wrote: »

Eat It. Eat it, You Nasty Pig. wrote: »

Terro is the name of the stuff I used last time I had a problem.

Terro is like going nuclear on ants only without the radiation and other nasty side effects. It's awesome.

Seriously.

$3.00 and 3 days and your ant problem will be gone.

ceres

Look if you're going to spray anything anywhere don't leave cat food there, during or after. That's just really stupid and can make your cat sick, so don't do it.

jefe414

When I lived by the beach, spring time was made official by ants. In the kitchen (we were meticulously clean) and on one of my bedroom windows. I used the same traps Smokestack posted. Some on the windowsill in my room, some in the kitchen. 2-3 days, all gone.

mts

those traps dont work all that well on the tiny little black ants. they do make ant spray that uses mint extract that is completely safe for animals, it works pretty good and you can probably find it a coop or other hippie dippy place.

shutz

I've had an ant infestation at my appartment in the past. I got rid of them using a little bottle of liquid stuff that's basically corn sugar and borax. If I didn't want to have to clean up the stuff after the ants went away, I'd fold a piece of thin cardboard in two, and put a few drops of the stuff on the inside, and then leave this homemade trap close to where I saw ants crawling.

When using the sugar/borax stuff, you have to remember not to kill the ants you see. Just place a new trap where you see ants, and let them pick up the stuff and take it back home to the queen and the other ants. Killing the ants only causes more ants to keep coming: ants leave a pheromone trail wherever they go, to guide other ants to food sources. The other ants will follow the trail left by the ants you killed, anyway. And if you clean up, hoping to destroy those pheromone tracks, you run the risk of the ants migrating to other parts of your place.

I found that it usually takes a few days (up to a week) for ants to stop going near a particular trap, and maybe up to a month to get rid of the infestation, but if you've done it right, the ants won't come back (unless a completely new infestation starts... there's no way to make a place completely impervious to infestation.)

From what the OP wrote about other possible infestations: I really doubt you have bed bugs. Bed bugs are usually reddish-brown, not black. You're unlikely to find them on your computer monitor: they really prefer to hide, except when they come out to feed in the middle of the night (around 3am.) Have you woken up to find insect bites on your body, which look like mosquito bites, but perhaps bigger, itchier, and which last a few more days than regular mosquito bites? If not, then I doubt it's bed bugs.

I got rid of bed bugs last summer/fall using two things: diatomaceous earth (mentioned by someone else, above... also works great to block ants -- for the small insects, it's like walking on broken glass, it scratches their exoskeletons all over, exposing their soft flesh until they die of dehydration, after a few days) and a mattress cover. I covered my mattress, box spring and the floor around my bed with diatomaceous earth, and then wrapped my mattres in a zip-up cover. What this does is it keeps the bed bugs in, giving them no opportunity to get out and feed. You then leave the cover on for at least 18 months (bed bugs and their eggs can survive without blood for up to 12 months.)

The first night I put the cover on, I wasn't bitten at all. Bed bugs stay close to where they can feed, so they were all on and in my mattress. The diatomaceous earth on the floor prevented more bugs to get onto the (now covered) mattress, and prevented any bugs that were close to the bed from crawling back onto the mattress.

Now, you have a cat, which complicates things, somewhat. If you do have bed bugs, I'd find some kind of a way to take the cat elsewhere (after a good, hot shampoo, to kill off any bed bug eggs it might be carrying...) for a week or two, while you "spray" some diatomaceous earth around your bed and around the spot where the cat sleeps. Cover your mattress, wait a few weeks, then consider bringing the cat back in, if you haven't been bitten again in the meantime.