Pest Control - The ants are coming (odiferous house ants)... what to do...

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The ants are coming (odiferous house ants)... what to do...

Marc_G

2006-04-17, 8:21 am

Hi All-

I've got a problem with what appear to be odiferous house ants. Dark
brown/black, 2-3 mm long, stink when you pop 'em.

They are in the kitchen and an adjacent room (which happens to be our
son's play room). Coming out between cracks along windowsills,
floor/cabinet interfaces, and in one spot it seems between to oak
flooring planks.

No sign that they are entering the house anywhere nearby; I think there
is a nest in the house. yuk. I've done the granule thing along the edge
of the house and sprayed down some "barrier creating" poison out there.
Hasn't done squat. They're already in.

This morning I wiped up 50 of them from the counters in the kitchen.
Wife is afraid of either me spraying stuff or having an exterminator,
because we have a 20-month-old child running around.

If we go for an exterminator, what's that likely to run? WE're in
Indianapolis. I'll call a couple places but just looking for a
ballpark.

Any thoughts about what to do in this situation appreciated.

Marc
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gpsman

2006-04-17, 10:21 am

Marc_G wrote: <brevity snip>

> I've got a problem with what appear to be odiferous house ants. Dark
> brown/black, 2-3 mm long, stink when you pop 'em.
>
> They are in the kitchen and an adjacent room (which happens to be our
> son's play room).

> If we go for an exterminator, what's that likely to run? WE're in
> Indianapolis. I'll call a couple places but just looking for a
> ballpark.

How much you got...? That... plus mmmm 10%.

> Any thoughts about what to do in this situation appreciated.

I have, on the rare occasion, spot treated an interior ant problem at
the customer's request... without warranty... for between $30-90,
depending on where they fell on my schedule for the day, how clean the
infested area is kept, its size, the degree of treatment difficulty and
how much I'd been jacked around by previous new customers that day (or
week) and my resultant mood.

I don't recommend spot treating ants. Ants are the most successful
species on the planet, can detect and avoid poisons and are likely to
find a path around the treatment and just spread throughout the
structure creating a bigger problem in the (not very) long run.

Some exterminators base their fee on square footage, I don't know why.
My average fee for the average home's ant problem would be about
$180-240 but I would guarantee that for 6 months and offer re-treatment
at 50% for 1 year.

As long as insecticides are applied according to label directions while
the home is unoccupied, and dry before reentry, there is little risk to
persons who are not chemically sensitive.

The applied concentrations of active ingredients in modern insecticides
can run about 0.05 - 0.10 percent and are not very hazardous to
anything besides insects when properly applied.

Sometimes you have to make a choice. Do you want to abandon your home
to ants (or burn it down) or have your child awaken covered with ants
or take a chance on the safety of an insecticide?
-----

- gpsman

valuepest@gmail.com

2006-04-17, 11:21 am

Ask your exterminator to do an Inside/Out treatment using a combination
of Phantom insecticide inside and Termidor outside. He can supplement
this with baits inside as well. I can't tell you how much the cost may
be - it varies from area to area.

Lar

2006-04-17, 11:21 am

In article <MPG.1ead4005448b1195989683@free.teranews.com>,
nobody@nowhere.com says...

No sign that they are entering the house anywhere nearby; I think there

is a nest in the house. yuk. I've done the granule thing along the edge

of the house and sprayed down some "barrier creating" poison out there.

Hasn't done squat. They're already in.

They do not create ground nests like other ants but will nest in/under
loose material, usually near moisture. Leaf matter under the hedges,
organic matter in the gutters, under the foot wipe on the front porch.
If the home has a crawl space countless number of locations will suit
them fine. They do seem to be attracted to Terro ant gel readily enough
along with searching and eliminating the found colonies near the home
can give good results, though if there is any chance of a moisture
problem under the home or in the walls it will make them impossible to
get rid of this way. As Jeff mentioned the Phantom/Termidor treatment
is pretty much a sure way of getting rid of them for the rest of the
year (unless there is a moisture issue). Prices vary from company to
company...I average around $60 for the ant treatment because the
products work so well it's always a one time visit, others companies
will charge $160 because the product works so well it will be a one time
visit....

Happybattles

2006-04-29, 12:21 pm

I've actually found MANY Odorous House Ants nesting in the ground. I
commonly find them near harvester ants. I also find them nesting in
trees, which is the other usual location here in Arizona.

Since Odorous House Ants have such a wide variety of food sources,
baits are nearly ineffective. This is also due to the fact that OHA's
don't share food as readily with the colony. At least Terro is a boric
acid-based bait which will have a slower kill and a higher chance to
spread throughout the colony.

Odorous House Ants have the notorious habit if being very skittish as
well. If the bait kills more than 10% of the colony but leaves more
than 10-20% alive, the colony is likely to "bud", which means they will
divide-up the queens, eggs and portable food and evacuate their nest in
at least two different directions to establish new colonies.

Absolutely the best way to control OHA's is by the use of Termidor /
Phantom. The ants will bring these materials back into the nest,
spread it among their fellow ants and kill the colony before any of
them know what's happened.

A more agressive approach would be drilling the walls inside your home
and applying a dust and possibly a flushing agent into the walls.
While this is considered to be a little "overboard", if done properly
it can kill the entire colony almost immediately. However, the
likelyhood of nailing the entire colony (or colonies) on the first shot
is low. Also, this way is VERY expensive and is only recommended for
SEVERE infestations where the customer wants immediate satisfaction and
can afford the service.

Personally, I recommend the Termidor / Phantom approach. The toxicity
to humans and pets is low but the mortality rate to ants is extremely
high. There's my 2 =A2

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