I'm being invaded!

[deird_lj]

Did I mention that I get freaked out by insects in large quantities?

My living room has developed an ant problem recently, probably due to the hot weather. They keep walking round on my coffee table, inspecting its contents.
Tonight, I decided to take care of the problem once and for all, with some ANT RID.

Ant Rid is wonderful stuff - as far as I can tell, it's sort of a poisonous honey. The theory being that ants love honey, and ants get killed off by poison.

It's very clever stuff, because instead of killing the ants RIGHT THERE, it dupes the ants into carrying all the poisoned honey back to their nest, where it kills ALL of them.
Unfortunately, for this to work, I can't just go round my coffee table spraying Mortein at all the Ant Rid eating ants. I actually have to let them eat it, and let them leave.

And, even more unfortunately, ants really like honey.

In the space of an hour, I have gone from five ants on my coffee table, to over sixty. (At sixty I lost count.)

EWWW!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Hmm, we tend to trace the trail of the ants to where they're entering the house, and put the Ant Rid there... still inside, but at least it's somewhere in the corner, usually next to a door or a window, in a coke-bottle lid or something which can be thrown away whole including the dried-up Ant Rid and the slacker ants that skipped the "carry it to the nest" bit and died right there. Slacker, or maybe just diabetic.

Ant Rid is great stuff, though.

η

[deird1]

Oh, I hope it is... Otherwise I've just let ants take over my coffee table for no reason.

I'd love to put the Ant Rid where they're coming in, but that's in the middle of my carpet...

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

They're coming up THROUGH YOUR CARPET?!?!
How?

I used to live there. I'm a tad alarmed at the thought of a big cavernous Gateway To Ants having been under my loungeroom...

[deird1]

Relax - it's not that bad. It's where the carpet meets the skirting board...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Hence the coke lid... as long as it's not somewhere you (or the cat) will trip over it.

η

[swellen.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I found that Ant Rid lost its effectiveness after the first generation. The first lot died, millions of kiddies came looking for their parents and the Ant Rid had no effect on them whatsoever. I have no idea why this is, but I've observed it more than once so I've given up on the Ant Rid now and I tend to stick with the Mortein. I mostly get them in my bathroom in hot weather because they're coming in looking for water.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

We've had success with Ant Rid, but it probably depends on the region (how many other people have already used it in the area) and luck, whether the ants start to be resistant to it (or learn to avoid it).

One thing about Ant Rid is that it does take a couple of days, which can sometimes give the impression that it's not doing anything.

η

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Meep - I really don't like ants at all. Unless they are inside Pratchett Computers!

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Ant Rid rocks.

We have a lid from the nutella glasses we use for it, it holds a lot and spreads it out so the anties can all come drink at once.
We tend to put it in the corner of a windowsill though, or somewhere outta the way...they'll find their way to it, never fear...
I have an ol' squirty-bottle of it (apparently it doesn't come in those anymore?), so I used to spell out 'DIE!' and so forth in it, and make pretty ant-pictures with it when they swarmed all over it... :-D

[dreamincolor.livejournal.com]

-shudders-

We had a spider problem for a long while, and Black Widow problem to be specific. (Eep!) Unfortunately, the only Spider Rid we ever found was our shoes, and various other blunt objects.. And there were so many of them..

Er, anyway. Point of that was, I feel your pain. -pats sympathetically-