Problem with ANTS?!!!

C

cowandchick

New Member
I have this problem with ants in my kitchen. I don't want to use insecticide spray coz I have food, but they're everywhere!
I try cleaning the table top often, but somehow they still come back. I also look for their origin and clean up that area, but after a few days, they've moved somewhere else!

How do you keep the ants away?
 


cowandchick,
You can get those ant baits. It gets carried back to the ant's nest and will destroy the entire ant colony. I find those powdered ones with Chinese characters on the box better than Baygon ones.

If you have not used it at your house before, it should work.
 
Thanks, tamarind. How should I use them? Will they get onto the food? Also afraid my kids accidentally swallow it.
Have seen them on sale, but didn't get them coz not sure how to use, and safety also. Please advise. Thanks
 
cowandchick,
You have to put them in a place where the kids cannot reach, but near to where there ants. Like under the cabinet.
 
Hi cowandchick,

I read from Mind Your Body last Wed to use cucumber slices to ward off ants. I have not tried it but will do so soon as my kitchen and master bedroom are also invaded by ants!! Arrggghhh...

I've tried the ant baits (not Chinese kind) for about 2 weeks now, but not very effective. Still see them lurking around my table top
angry.gif
 
cowardchick

do you happen to reside in Sengkang? Sengkang tends to have this prob.. was told that these ants are ghost ants... very small & normally end up in your drinks ... no matter how you clean or put baits they will w/o fail come again after awhile... sigh...

I'm fighting a losing battle wif them....
 
Tamarind - thanks. Will try that out
Bin - thanks too. Cucumber seems less harmful. Will try it out. Just hope the kids don't help themselves to the slices when I'm not looking!

RM2 - Nope, I stay near Kovan area, but the pests just as persistent! Ghosts alright, they seem to originate from nowhere!
 
hello, i dunno where i heard from that putting powder on that place and they will avoid it. so probably you can try leading these ants out of the window. i nvr tried it b4, maybe worth a try if the other methods dun work..
 
The Baygon bait that i bought does not work at all. So many ants just crawled past it, they are not attracted to it.
 
I bought the Combat ant bait but the mini ones. Comes 12 in a box. I put out 24 mini baits all over the kitchen and within days, all ants disappeared!!
 
me at Yew Tee also has such problem..

clear one area, they appear at another spot few days later. every time i wanna drink water, gotta see carefully r there any ants in the drink!
 
Hi mommies here..

I hate ants!!!!

Ants hate vinegar!!

I mixed vinegar with those super cheap dish washer (big tub $3+) and uses it for washing dishes.. Such mixture is very good for removing oily stuff FAST!

Beside this, keep ants away too!

Try it!
happy.gif


Try dap/rinse table cloth with water + vinegar and uses it to wipe tables and kitchen areas.. Very GOOD in clearing grease and keep ants away..

happy.gif
 
Hi abyane
What is the proportion of vinegar u mix with dish washer? Is it white vinegar that u used?
 
I stay at low floor but even my child left candy over time you will not find any ants. I put ant power which only $2 on the place that ant travel.Buy the power at NTUC
 
ME TOO! my cups also have. i wonder is it because i have diabetes then the ants come. but of cos i don't have diabetes la.
 
my home is infested with ghost ants too! they're small, move very quickly, hv transparent bodies. i tried using both baygon & combat ant killers but no use. they're much more irritating than other types of ants coz they keep coming back even after you spray insecticide in that area. very persistant and driving me crazy!

i think these ppl at baygon shd develop baits esp for this type of ants. heard different ants need to use different baits.
 
Me too, hv bot the Baygon ant baits. Not effective at all. Waste my $$$.
sad.gif
Maybe I'll try the Combat ones to see. These very small ant-looking things only appears in kitchen. uRGH.
 
can try using a few drops of lavender essential oils mix wif a little water in a small spray bottle. spray @ place that walk or go NTUC buy a small yellow grain kind of medicine put that at a few places of ur hse make sure the kids will not touch it. Very effective for me.. my hse use to have alot of these ghost ants almost the whole kitchen no matter how i clean it seal all the food no use.. i try both of these method works very well.. nw no more ants..

The box is yellow color on top n red color @ the side.. got black color pic of the ants, lizard & roaches. it's onli $1plus.. inside got 10 small box..
 
i tried egg shells, read it in a mag that the egg shell (clean and dried) will emit a certian kind of smell that ants dislikes. it works intially but after a few weeks, the 'smart' ants did a de-tour and they can be found around the egg shells.
 
vinegar and water. works well. wipe off counter top. ants disappear soon after. but must repeat this once every month.
 
May I know how to use the baygon ant baits? Just take out from the plastic bag and put on the floor?

The instruction says break from the plastic. What does that mean?
 
Just wondering - how do you differentiate termites and ants? I find ants in my cupboard. Could they be termintes? How can ants exist in cupboard? No sweet stuff in there...
 
i am using a floor cleaner which wards off ants and is eco-friendly, anti-bacteria also good if ur tod crawls around the house. pm me.
 
The ants in my house are getting desperate. So desperate even detergent, orange peel and toxic stuff attracts them out.

What's the best way to rid stubborn ants? Will try the vinegar and water method suggested by JustMe meanwhile. White vinegar or black?
 
should be white vinegar coz they have "antiseptic" effect and looks cleaner after e wipe? haha
strongly recommend to try e floor cleaner im using. if u dun mind can use it to wipe the walls or corners that ants frequent too since it is safe for kids anyway. pm me bah.
 
the floor cleaner's brochure is not with me now hence can only share later. it shows the experiment done which keeps ants and insects away. my fren tried and even helped removed the colour pencil or crayon stain on her tiles which was drawn by her daughter yrs ago! i din realise we can upload it here thou... but will everyone be able to access?
 
Thought you can just share with us the brand name of the cleaner.

To upload an image:
- maximum allowable upload size is 50 kilobytes.
- maximum dimension is 600px by 600px.
 
so sorry but the scanned brochure is too big to be uploaded perhaps due to it being coloured. the website does not show the experiment thou... can i email to u?
 
Hi,

Anyone tried bay leave? Ants hate them. They will stay clear the area. Same goes for chilli powder...

My mum used to have ants in kitchen cabinets and after putting bay leaves they abandon nesting and for the last few years we do not have a problem of them in our cupboards.
 
Hi girls..

Just go to the condiments section of any NTUC or cold storage. I think McCormick have them in bottles.. Remember get the whole leaves..

Normally ppl use these leave for cooking stew or grill stuff with them.
 
yup.. McCormick and the other brand have them in bottles.. but I don't really know what leaves they are.. they smell & look like oranges' leaves to me.. :p
 
Hi, just to share what I've observed.

I always will put my rubbish in a plastic bag and it always will attract a lot of ants. Everytime, I killed a few ants, they will come back again.

Yesterday, found a big group of ants in the plastic bag, so I rubbed the plastic and killed all of them and then also a few who tried to run away. Amazingly, for the rest of the day, the same plastic bag was cleared of ants (except those killed). Guess either I have killed the entire "clan" or that the other ants "knew" that the danger zone and kept away.

In the past, I often had to spray insecticide into the dustbin, hoping to keep the ants away. Now most likely I'll try the above method and I don't have to spray insecticide in my kitchen anymore.
 
So far the only thing that appears to work is to track them to where they are living and block their entrance. In my case:

1. Under the tiles of our living room floor, coming out from the cracks between the tiles.
2. In the leg of a wooden cabinet
3. Inside the metal frame of a window in the kitchen.

What I did was to track the ant trails to where they were coming in and out and believe me it was all over the house, especially the tiles. I would then seal up the tiny holes with some white cement. You will still see them come out of yet other holes and you have to just continue to seal all the holes until they disappear. Believe me after a few days of tracking their trails, they have disappeared from the living room. Kitchen is where I am currently working on.

You also have to track them through walls, they like to travel along pipes that go through walls. You should also seal up all these trails that they have throughout the house.

If they are coming from outside, then I would resort to pesticide/ant/repellents/bait from the trail coming into the house/apartment. We have pets so are reluctant to use any type of poisons and will prefer homemade non-toxic repellents.

This is an ongoing battle as these ants are multi-colonies and will usually have several nests around the house and can attack the furniture. For such small ants they are quite voracious. When I started sealing their entrances, I could see swarms of 10 or so ants biting the white cement and pulling out chunks. If you are persistant you can beat them and they will move somewhere else. I made the mistake the first time of stopping after I got them down to a managable level and they came back with a vengence.

I read somewhere that they like to live in the wood of cabinets near the sink, because it is damp and they can make a nest there. It is no wonder that the previous owners cabinets near the sink were completely rotten out, so keep your sink area dry and use sealants around the edge of your sink and where it meets the wall so that water does not damage wood. They also like to live in flower pot in the soil and saw this in one of my plant when I was transplanting it to a bigger pot.

These ants are really strange, they seem to try and eat almost anything. I remember once they attacked a new tube of facial soap I bought. They were biting into the plastic. they even attacked one of TV remotes.

Good luck
 
My house has these look smaller than ants type of insects that can jump when i try to squeeze them. they appear on sofa,papers,toliet table top n especially walls.What can be used to clear them all?
And tiny spiders, hw to get rid of them?
 
I think you should change your cabinets, maybe not those wooden ones. recently, i encounter the same problem, lots of insects after few years and i change my cabinets with Singapore cabinets and their service is quite ok...
 
Ants these days can swim and eat anything! Got to change tactic every few months 'cos they adapt very quickly. Sometimes, diluted dettol, water soaked with lemon/grapeddruit skin.

They ate my around prawn paste chicken, boiled kailan, hb's coffee and even party in the sink (mama lemon doesn't kill them these days?).
 
Lizards hates lemon. I mop the floor with detergent and some lemon juice. Same thing for wiping other parts of the home. This method is good for ridding cockroaches too.
 
Try Bio X 3 in 1 Eco friendly insecticide. I hv no regrets after buying it from BP. Ants hv always bothered me, I hv tried ant baits n insecticide but ants still came back. After using Bio X, the ants never turn up in the kitchen or dining area. It is a water based insecticide so u won't be bothered by the oiliness.

I sprayed at their hiding place and their tracks. The next day, I don't see them around. Bio X's efficiency will stay for 30 days as long it's not washed off by water. Any ant that touches the surface which is sprayed with bio x will die in a few days. Bio X can be found in NTUC supermarket and Self fix DIY shop. Home fix might hv it, you would need to check it out.
 


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