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I’ve learned to live with my little sugar ants, but I don’t have anything close to that kind of problem (I thank the little baby geckos for that… LOL).
I’m a little more tolerant of bugs than most people, being an entomologist… but if it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s the large American cockroaches!! I so can’t wait to move out of my condo. It’s hard fixing a bug problem when your living space is connected to everyone else’s. GRRRR!! 😐
Oh goodness when I was in L.A. Cockroaches infested the streets! Well this one night I had been drinking and before I could get back to the boat i really had to pee so I decided to use the public restroom since I had a key and it would be sooner then the boat. So I unlock the door turn the light on then lock the door behind me, at this point I was doing the inebriated potty dance, I go to the cleanest looking stall. I get my pants down and right as I;m about to sit I check the seat…you can never be to careful. Well out of nowhere is a giant cockroach staring at me. I shrieked and managed to get to another stall before peeing myself…. I don’t like cockroaches either.
I remember going to a hotel in Florida a few years ago and the room became infested with ants… at first I saw a few in the bathroom and thought nothing of it… that evening, they were crawling in my bed, over a can of coke I had on the table, almost inside the chest of drawers where I had all my clothes… horrible experience for a top grade hotel. >.<
This year at home I've noticed an increase in wasps in my garden.. the weather seems to get gradually hotter every year so I can only think they're thriving on it.
Haha! I saw your post on facebook, drag0n! Your ants must be migrating south-the little creeps just showed up 3-4 days ago, so they aren’t at the plague stage yet, but they are getting bad. I found 2 in my sugar container this morning, and they were swarming the dining table after a sonic slush I left sitting there overnight (whoopsies). There is a really great product I found at Ace Hardware-its in a black bottle-its not some huge name brand….and of course now that Im trying to remember the name, it escapes me. I’ll look when I get home. But its a “bug barrier” so you’re supposed to spray your windows, door frames, and all around your home to keep bugs out. It works for about 6 months or so. And it has a looooong print out label telling you the proper way to kill just about every kind of bug you could have in your home-some things we dont have in Houston, so I was appalled-and some I’d never heard of. Some bigger, meaner bugs, it suggests spraying the actual bug if you see them (like red wasps) and other things it just keeps them out. (like ants and roaches and june bugs).
I could swear by this stuff. After I sprayed last October, I didn’t see a single bug until May-except maybe a dead one or two.
If you want a more natural solution that won’t hurt your fur babies you might try sprinkling catnip across the ant path and around the foundation of your home. Ants do not like catnip at all… Won’t kill the little boogers but it’ll keep ’em out of your house 😉
twindragonsmum :bigsmile:
Oh! This made me think of this too-a little off topic, but the oil from cat nip is a natural mosquito repellant-it is supposed to be 10 times stronger than deet and safe to use on young kids
Bugs dont bother me. But I spend a lot of time feeding them to reptiles, and I’ve bred a species of roach for reptile food. Not the american kind, a tropical kind called the Dubia.
Nonetheless I dont want them in my house. My cats take care of most of them. I also have two or three wolf spider males in my basement that I just let live there that take care of everything else. Spiders are the least likely to bother me.
More than ants or anything though, I hate hate hate wasps, yellow-jackets and other flying, stinging a**holes out there. If I find them, I light them up with half a can of raid.
I keep my kitchen super clean, as habit after living in a terrible roach-ridden TX apartment, and despite this we have had a monstrous ant problem this year! I don’t mind a few of them but it was just insane. They were somehow living in every possible area– the dishwasher?! The microwave?! THE OVEN?? These are even areas that you know… get cleaned often and have little food residue (especially the dishwasher, come on). It was just totally out of hand.
I hate chemicals, because they get into the environment, the animals, our bodies, yuck (the worst offenders for pest/herbicide use are actually homeowners, not big companies), so at first I tried Diatomaceous Earth. And it DID work, but it was no match for the sheer numbers of ants! They were replacing the dead faster than they were dying.
So after some research, we got a liquid ant bait like the liquid Terro, which is essentially a strong sweetener with borax in it. They drink it because it’s delicious (to them) and then spread it with their kin. The borax kills them. It won’t hurt us or other animals, or even most other insects (i.e. it won’t get into the environment and accidentally kill beneficial honeybees, etc).
It did the job within two days! I haven’t seen an ant since…Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comIf you want a more natural solution that won’t hurt your fur babies you might try sprinkling catnip across the ant path and around the foundation of your home. Ants do not like catnip at all… Won’t kill the little boogers but it’ll keep ’em out of your house 😉
twindragonsmum :bigsmile:
Oh! This made me think of this too-a little off topic, but the oil from cat nip is a natural mosquito repellant-it is supposed to be 10 times stronger than deet and safe to use on young kids
I actually looked at natural ways to get rid of the boogers, buuuuut….
Warning about the catnip (and oils derived from it): some people are allergic to it! I am strongly allergic to catnip. When I was working for a pet store and had to unpack shipments of live catnip or cat toys with dried catnip I thought I was going to die. I finally got permission to stop stocking those items.Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comFind some diatomaceous earth, food grade if you can, it is safe for pets and people, heck some use it as dewormer!
Find some diatomaceous earth, food grade if you can, it is safe for pets and people, heck some use it as dewormer!
Just a few things. I’m a huge, huge proponent for natural solutions to things and so I love DE (diatomaceous earth)!
It should be noted though:
If it is not listed as ‘food grade’ it is generally not considered safe for use around pets or people (dry) because it has been heated and it changes the silicas and can cause respiratory problems if inhaled. DE that you find at pool supplies and sometimes garden stores is not usually ‘food grade’.While I would LOVE it if did work as a safe, natural, chemical free dewormer, I should mention that research does not indicate that it does any benefit to deworm animals. It CAN help to dry feces and reduce flies (that are attracted to the feces) when fed internally for outdoor animals, but trials have not shown that it does anything beneficial once an animal is actively infested with worms. 🙁
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comHaha! I saw your post on facebook, drag0n! Your ants must be migrating south-the little creeps just showed up 3-4 days ago, so they aren’t at the plague stage yet, but they are getting bad. I found 2 in my sugar container this morning, and they were swarming the dining table after a sonic slush I left sitting there overnight (whoopsies). There is a really great product I found at Ace Hardware-its in a black bottle-its not some huge name brand….and of course now that Im trying to remember the name, it escapes me. I’ll look when I get home. But its a “bug barrier” so you’re supposed to spray your windows, door frames, and all around your home to keep bugs out. It works for about 6 months or so. And it has a looooong print out label telling you the proper way to kill just about every kind of bug you could have in your home-some things we dont have in Houston, so I was appalled-and some I’d never heard of. Some bigger, meaner bugs, it suggests spraying the actual bug if you see them (like red wasps) and other things it just keeps them out. (like ants and roaches and june bugs).
I could swear by this stuff. After I sprayed last October, I didn’t see a single bug until May-except maybe a dead one or two.
Ah yes, *blush* I have quite the sailors mouth on my facebook sometimes, but it’s usually my comedic way of conveying my absolutely blunt persona via silent internet text >_< LOL!
Yea, I am waiting for that liquid terro to arrive in the mail now. I need to use something I can hide away from curious animals who could possibly get hurt so I try to avoid sprays when I can. I did used that bug barrier stuff and they were back in like 2 days tho… laughing in my face with their tiny pincer mouths! MOCKING ME!!!
I really hope this terro works. The hardest part is going to be NOT smashing them into a pulp once they start to swarm. *gag*
…I wonder if there are domesticated anteaters? 0.o
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drag0nfeathersdesign@gmail.com
*OPEN for repairs**SEEKING GRAILS*
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Dreamscape, Orion, Poison Dart, Fireberry, Spangler + Tigerberry DragonsI had that problem last year and what I used was TERRO Ant Killer. Since I have a dog I didn’t want him to get into it so I bought some little plastic tube likre things with a removable cap. The cap has a hole in it aqnd the ants crawl inside and die. It worked better for me than the bug lady that sprayed my house once a month. You can gett it at Home Depot
The bit about catnip repelling mosquitos reminded me that one year when a lot of ants kept coming in we sprayed all around the edge of the kitchen floor and around the windows with Mosquito repellant. Everywhere they were squeezing in we put a line of repellant and it worked quite well. At the time there were no babies or cats or dogs on the floor, so I used “Off” and paid no notice to what was in it.
Using catnip that way would be quite amusing… “why is your cat trying to push his head under the door???”
I remember going to a hotel in Florida a few years ago and the room became infested with ants… at first I saw a few in the bathroom and thought nothing of it… that evening, they were crawling in my bed, over a can of coke I had on the table, almost inside the chest of drawers where I had all my clothes… horrible experience for a top grade hotel. ><
I had the same type of problem in the Fort Pierce, Florida area with some hard cough drops. They were on the night stand so I could just grab them without turning on the light. I thought they seemed a little gritty, but I was mostly asleep. Comes the daylight, and ants were crawling all over them. Ugh! Years later, and I still remember that hotel. It is no longer with us, thanks to hurricane damage a few years ago.
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