Pest control help?
#270035 - 06/18/06 09:03 AM
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Vicam
Reged: 02/24/04
Posts: 1955
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Does anyone have any experience with pest control? We are having a serious ant problem in our apartment and we don't know what to do. Technically we shouldn't have to do anything since we're in an apartment ... however our building managers don't seem to want to do anything either.
We have a whole bunch of ants that are congregating underneath our couch which is up against a bay window. We are on the ground floor and outside the bay window is a garden which is where I think they are coming from. We've laid a few of those ant traps, but so far they are still coming. We woke up this morning and they were all over our living room, and when we moved the couch we saw that they were all just hanging out under there.
It's absolutely disgusting. There is no one I can contact right now because the building managers are (of course) off-duty...but like I said, they haven't done anything anyways. We pay $1000/month to live here and we are literally sharing our apartment with all sorts of bugs (we also have earwigs at night).
Does anyone have any tips for anything we could do today? We have a can of RAID for crawling insects (you know the kind that kills on contact ... it's a spray) but the directions aren't overly clear and I'm not sure if we can spray that on carpet. It says not to spray on rubber-backed carpet but it'd be nice to know whether that's because of danger to us and/or our pets or because it'll wreck the carpet.
Any information would be very much appreciated.
*edited for language, my apologies
Edited by Vicam (06/18/06 09:35 AM)
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I understand your frustration. We had ant problems when we lived in Spain. I would go outside and spray the ant spray around the area you think they are coming in. If it is a window spray around the window. Sometimes you can see from the outside how they are getting in and spray in that area.
This way you won't have to have the ant spray in your house. For the ones already in your house can you sweep them up and flush them down the toilet?
I know they are a pain. Sorry to hear that you aren't getting any support from your landloard.
Good Luck!
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Janey
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Check into your local health/sanitation and safety laws for tenants. You may find something you can take to your landlord to get him movin'. Otherwise, you can get ant traps or stakes, and I have found that good old hairspray will get rid of a lot of ants. I wouldn't use Raid on the carpet. Usually ants march toward something that attracts them. Have you taken a good look under your couch (the couch itself, the carpet, the wall and window behind it, and even inside the couch)? Ants are sneaky little things.
I found this link for earwigs. I don't know if it will be helpful but it's worth a shot. http://www.bugspray.com/articles99/earwig.html
For all your pest probs...
If you can find the areas where they are coming in, go to your local hardware or home improvement store and you can get a spray foam that fills openings. People use this a lot in the deep south to keep out roaches and what-not. It expands when it comes out of the can and makes a tight seal. Run that by your landlord first to make sure you can use it.
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If you're not dead, you've still got time.
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If they are the big black ones they are the kind that nest in wood. They are not easy to get rid of. Look for ant stakes that go in the ground outside or search on line for home remedies.
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Carol
nós somos o que nós somos e o descanso é merda
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Go out and get some good ant spray. We had them too behind our fridge and I bought the traps and they did not seem to care and then I went and bought some spray from the dollar store and they disappeared. I would spray outside as well. Good luck, they are huge pain.
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We had a serious ant problem as well. I can certainly relate to the digusting part. We used Raid Earthblends, its an Ant&Earwig Dust. It's a very fine powder and does not effect pets or plants etc. We bought this at Canadian Tire in Alberta, so should be readily available for you. Good luck.
Oh yea....our ants were GONE!!!!
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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away
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You might remember we had the same problem a while back - well, we've completely solved it! Yay!
We have put ant powder down all the way round the outside of the house, which will kill them and they hate the smell of it. However, some do get through (ran or wind can move it, and create a pathway for them), so we've added a line of defence in the house where they were coming through the fireplace - cinammon! Seriously, they will not go anywhere near it, and will NEVER cross it! 
We've been absolutely stunned by it, it's so funny to watch them come through, nearly reach the cinnamon and then turn straight round and go back outside. In a recent scientific test ants were dumped in the middle of a ring of various things that they are supposed to not cross, including ant powder and pepper - th eonly one they would not cross to leave the ring was cinammon.
And of course it's child-safe, non-toxic, doesn't harm your carpet and even smells nice! But yes, there's a downside - we have a pale beige carpet, and of course cinammon doesn't look great sprinkled on it. However, ours come in through the fireplace by the couch, so you don't really see it, and even if you did we'd leave it there as it's doing such an amazing job - we've not had a single one since we found the 2 places they were coming in and put cinammon down round them. And previous to that I was killing about 20 every ten minutes!!
Hope that helps 
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http://ibsblondie13.blogspot.com/
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