All the rain on the east coast has caused other issues besides flooding.
 
With the ground saturated, the ANTS are coming out looking for drier places to live. They have decided I have a nice dry house and have attempted to move in. Normally we only have to deal with them briefly in the early spring.
 
Last night, we saw a few on the laundry room counter. I had been spraying them when I saw them, but that wasn't getting the job done..... for over a week I have battled them. Last night I decided to "feed them" instead. I whipped out the Terro ant killer and put a few drops on cardboard and put it on their trail. they seemed to like it pretty good and shortly there was a ring of hungry ants around it.  So I obliged and added several more feed spots along the counter. I came back in 15 minutes and the counter was swarming with hundreds of ants. I was tempted to get the vac, but my wife said no..... let them feed. It was gross seeing that many ants on the counter.
 
I stocked the food before retiring to the bed....
 
This morning....I was up early to see if the hundreds had become thousands...... but no..... there were only a few dozen still feasting..... perhaps by tonight that number will be a mere few remaining stragglers.
 
 
 Add: there was a line of them coming in to the front corner..... I slammed them with carpenter ant/termite spray concentrate..... there was 2 different colonies inhabiting the RV on the side of the house...... slammed them the same way...... and sprayed the foundations of the house as well...... Better living through chemistry..... at least for now....
 

 

I hate ants. http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2798961&mpage=1&print=true

Just imagine what a mess it would have been if a thousand uncles were eating on your kitchen counter!
(You'd have to call those spamming guys for a kitchen remodel!)

Yep.... the numbers are dwindling on the counter...... BUT..... I went to the RV.... I looked around inside and saw a few still wandering on the kitchen sink area...... so I went outside and opened a side hatch.....   There was the hiding place of the ants. Well, there were a few dozen when I moved the tool box..... so I went inside the house and grabbed a few of the now unused baits from the laundry room and placed them inside the hatch and closed it.
 
I went off to deliver something and returned an hour later. Figured I'd check the baits..... hundreds upon hundreds of ants swarming all over the baits.... they had completely covered them. So I added more bait and more locations..... it's a matter of let them feast and keep them stocked up....
 
Dave, I hear ya and feel your pain. Seems ALL the ants here in NC will bite you...and they hurt. The fire ants are worse. I got bit while holding the hatch open to add more bait.  And perhaps 25 years ago or more, I had a nightmare where I had dreamed that  I was covered in ants..... I literally jumped out of bed hollering and started trying to brush them off. Scared my wife half to death jumping around like that in the middle of the night.... It's funny now but not so much at the time.
 
 
I hate bugs....I'm trying to figure out which is worse.... the ants I have now..... or the time we went camping and ended up coming home and the following week discovered that we had brought home at least 3 black widow spiders. One was discovered in a lounge chair that was stored UNDER THE BED.... my wife asked me to get it out so she could use the chair in the back yard...... there was a huge freaking BW spider guarding an egg sac when she opened the chair up.  Then a few days later, in the shed, I went to move my bike, and my hand passed through a web on the bike frame.... there is a certain feel to a BW web that once you feel it, you will instantly recognize it again.... turns out there were 2 smaller BW's in the bike's frame.  Not that we don't have BW's around here anyway, because we do.... but in the RV, with an egg sac? Oh that could have been a real disaster of a camping trip next time out.... I fumigated that RV big time.
 
I normally find at least one fair sized BW spider somewhere on my property every year. So far this year... none.... hope it stays that way.
 

Herb, it's the same here. I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate bugs. Well, actually, yes I can and I think I will just so you see you're not alone. LOL!!
 
Every year for the 4th of July, NJ gets hit by flying ants. You can't even find out where they come in. It makes my skin crawl. They don't bite, but they annoy you because they fly to the top of your light fixtures and just keep on hitting them making this popping sound. They get in everywhere. Through my window seals, my AC outlets, my ceiling....man, I can't tell you what it does to me. Imagine having a client and the next thing you know, you have 10 flying ants popping all over the ceiling.
 
This year I went out to look at the back of the studio where they seem to be entering. I nearly threw up when I went out there. I have bars on all my lower level windows. When I went out there....the bars were moving. Ever see pictures of a man covered in bees to where it looks like he has a beard? That's what my bars looked like.
 
After insane spraying, I called a friend of mine and had him dig up my ground as far as he could to check my foundation. I had him seal everything he could find...redid concrete, caulked anywhere and everywhere and after I saw all the work he did, I felt good about it.
 
I wasn't done there. Next I called an exterminator friend of mine. I told him what the problem was and he said "dude, you just ain't gonna beat them....it's too hot and it will be a fight to where they win." So I did some investigating...and then called him again.
 
This time, I had him drill into my walls and blow this white powder in the walls. We have "entry" points to each wall that are hidden so that they don't stick out to people. Every 6 months, he comes and shoots this powder in the walls and I've not seen anything since.
 
In my house, I went to take a shower about 2 weeks ago and saw 2 ants in my tub. I went ballistic and though "great, now I need to dig up my house foundation and shoot the powder in the walls here too like I did the studio".
 
So I call my friend the exterminator and have him come over. I was dumb-founded because my house is huge man...and my bathroom is on the second floor. Like WAY UP high in the house. How on earth are ants getting there?! As slow as they walk, it would take 2 months for them to climb that high! Low and behold, the lil baystids were getting in through the pipes!!! We powdered all through the pipes, in through the sheetrock and in any nook and cranny we could find.
 
Next, I set these borax bait stations that literally let the ants take the food back to the colony, they share it and it wipes them out. I put so many of them around my house and my studio, you would think I have a serious problem with an invasion. LOL!
 
I still wasn't done. I figured since I got my friend here, I HATE HATE HATE crickets!! Now we got those camel crickets here too and man, they sooo suck! Really hard to kill as they can move side to side and disappear like a ninja. The regular crickets bother me so bad with that chirp stuff, I cannot finish my work if I hear one. I have to stop doing what I'm doing and search him out. They get in my drop ceiling, hide all over the place and are excellent ventriloquists! So my exterminator friend gets his truck and covers my grass with a blanket of this stuff for bugs, crickets, ticks, fleas, you name it, we're covered.
 
Then he comes in and sprinkles this yellow granular stuff all over, inside my drop ceiling, the garage, behind furniture etc. If I get stuff after this....I'm moving some place cold. Between the bugs and leaving my AC on all the time....I don't know what's worse, bugs and their treatments, or a $600 electric bill due to the AC for home and studio. I used to love summer.....now I can't wait for frost! Death to all bugs! :)
 
-Danny

Danny Danzi
I HATE HATE HATE crickets!!

Oh no!
 

 

craigb

Danny Danzi
I HATE HATE HATE crickets!!

Oh no!
 

 

Ok, not him....he gets a free pass always. He sort of always looked like an inch worm more than a cricket. LOL! Maybe a small grasshopper since he's green. :)

 Another idea....you could put some really nice food out in the yard and then a trail of it right on out to where you want them to end up ( just not your neighbor).
 
 One year we had hornets nests and I really didn't like them...until I discovered they eat ants.

I know that this sounds funny but it really works....
 
Feed them Grits!
Yes .... Grits.....
 
What happens is the ants eat the grits and also bring them back to the nest for others to feed on including the queen.....
 
Now we all know what happens to grits when you add water? Right?
Well, the ants eat, become fat and engorged and finally blow up......yep that's right blow up from the expansion of the Grits!!!
 
And it is environmentally friendly as well!
 
Clifford