I think I need an entomologist

President Rex

Or maybe just some borax.

Anyway, I've recently moved into a new apartment, and I've also recently started noticing some tiny reddish-brown bugs in my bathroom.

They've got segmented bodies and are about 0.5mm x 2mm. They don't have wings and they don't even seem to be able to walk particularly well, so I'm not even sure how they've managed to get this far. I'm also more than 50 feet above the closest lawn (and my bathroom has no windows), so I don't think they've miraculously ingressed through a window.



At first I thought they were ants, but in the last 2 days I have found about 6 of them and they're only in my bathroom (usually on the sink or the floor). The bathroom is just about as far as you can get from my kitchen without being outside.


So first of all: do I need to panic and start burning everything in my apartment. And then: how do I kill them (my plan is to borax up the place unless there's something more effective, but I may need to expedite that plan if they're true parasites.

No free rides. Unless you're a puppy or kitten or something, in which case: socialism for all the cute fluffy animals!

Fantasma

They look like ants, some Raid two days a week will keep them away.

matt has a problem

Spray bug spray around the base of the toilet, and around where any pipes go through the wall or floor, i.e. the cold and hot water, drain etc. Also try pouring a few cups of bleach down your sink drain, followed by plenty of water a few minutes later.

NightDragon

They reminded me of sugar ants, which led me to find a link about Pharaoh Ants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_ant. It says they eat a lot of things, including toothpaste.

President Rex

Thanks for the assistance so far; I can probably get behind pharaoh ant decision.

The most important information gleaned is probably that potental colonies can scatter and create new colonies if sprayed with overtly noticeable pesticides. So the recommended method is baiting on paths the ants travel.

But the problem (if it can be called a problem) is that I only ever see one ant at a time (albeit usually at the floor of the sink cabinet or on the sink itself). So how can I know what constitute's an ant's path if it's effectively one ant at a time? I figure I can throw a bunch of boric acid in the pipe access behind the sink and then around some wall/floor edges, but I'm not sure how much more strategic I could go.

Tox

If you're never seeing more than one, they're likely scouts. Your problem is probably not interior, or if it is then not actually in the bathroom, but in a space near there. You need to inform your landlord, as they may have built a nest either outside near your apartment (if you're on the ground floor) or in the walls between your unit and another unit, or in another unit.

tarnok

Tox wrote:

If you're never seeing more than one, they're likely scouts. Your problem is probably not interior, or if it is then not actually in the bathroom, but in a space near there. You need to inform your landlord, as they may have built a nest either outside near your apartment (if you're on the ground floor) or in the walls between your unit and another unit, or in another unit.

Also, don't leave anything out that they would consider food. If they're just scouts that means they haven't found anything they like yet. If they find something they can eat then there will be hundreds of them in no time.

Sir Carcass

Ants need water just like anything else. In our last place, whenever we'd turn on the tub faucet in the guest bathroom (it didn't get used much), a bunch of ants would wash out. Hate ants so much.

Those bait traps you buy at the store worked pretty well for us, but a lot of times there will be a nest somewhere outside that you'll need to get. We just put them where we'd see them (kitchen, by the cat food, in the bathroom) and started seeing them less.

ArbitraryDescriptor

Follow them for a while, see if they lead you back to where they're coming in, then raid that.

[e] Unless they turn out to be tiny puppies, of course. That blow-up is a little blurry.

President Rex

I'd like to imagine that the ants are getting scouting allotments divvied out to them and it's all

"Wall crevice, alright!"
"Wall crevice, great!"
"...white bathroom? White bathroom!? Nobody ever comes back from there!"

Since I mercilessly crush the lone invaders.Maybe that means I should just put a pinch of borax on every ant/bug-thing I see and send a message back home for them.


Also I took 5 pictures and that was the most in focus I could get. My camera does not do well with super close-ups of bugs.

zucchini

Get Terro. It owns the crap out of all kinds of ants and you don't need to worry about spraying raid everywhere.

http://www.terro.com/

punk

zucchini wrote:

Get Terro. It owns the crap out of all kinds of ants and you don't need to worry about spraying raid everywhere.

http://www.terro.com/

This. A thousand times. Terro totally destroyed an ant problem I had in my apartment a couple of years back. I'm on the 4th (and top!) floor and the little SOBs climbed all the way up here to get into my business. Normal ant death traps did not work. As soon as those little assholes started to suck down that Terro, I never saw them again. You also get the added satisfaction of seeing a literal field of ant death around each Terro deposit. Suck on that, invaders!

143999

A combination of boric acid in prime (and out of the way, unvisited by humans and pets) spots, traps on or near exterior entry points and in other likely areas, and a perimeter spray when necessary has never failed for me. Common ants are a very by-the-numbers insect, which is good in that a reliable treatment regimen is fairly easy to prepare and execute once you know what works.

Terro's ant cowboy spokesman there really should've just not shaven for a couple of days before they did that spot.

And they should've gotten Sam Elliot to dub his voice.

You know what, fuck it. They should've just gotten Sam Elliot.

either,or

I think they're almost certainly Pharoah ants, especially as you're seeing them in the bathroom as they like hot places with lots of moisture, and I assume your central heating will run through there. I have the same problem in my new flat! Are you renting? About a day after I moved in I got a letter asking me to keep an eye out for them, and today (about a month later) I have received another saying that a few flats across the building have reported seeing them so it's likely a nest and they're calling in some pest control people over the next few weeks to treat the whole place (huge tower block of 250+ flats). So I guess if you're renting it's not your responsibility, which is good because it sounds like sprays etc. aren't really that effective at all if you have colonies of Pharoah ants so they might just end up taking care of it for you. Have you talked to your Landlord or anyone else?

puffycow

During the summer I had a bit of an ant issue with them coming into my kitchen. I used Terro and within days the only ants I saw anymore were the ones dead. After a week I saw none.