Tiny black ant infestation?

Question

My grandmother lives on the North Coast of NSW in Australia, and every holiday season we travel to visit her. This year we travelled north for a few days to see family, and when we arrive back at her home we were greeted by thousands of tiny black ants all over the house. We've been trying to figure out exact where they're coming and going, but there's so many trails of them all through the house it's impossible to figure out.
Almost every single ant is carrying an egg, I'd say at least 80% of the ants are carrying them, and in the living room just above the fireplace there's a giant pile of eggs built up out in the open. We've put out ant-traps but they don't seem to be taking to them very well. Because it's still the holiday period we're not sure if we'll be able to get in contact with an exterminator for a while.

Why are these ants behaving like this and what can we do in the mean time to help get rid of the bastards?

john r · Answer

To kill ants you need to know what kind they are. Some ants eat sweet and some eat grease. Terro works sometimes but not all the time. Small black ants usually are sweet or grease eaters. Most of the ant killers will help some but it takes time.

You can try the ant killer gel on url below it has same ingredients that most exterminators use and works fast. Try putting ant killer next to ants on fireplace and see if they eat some.  This sounds like where they are putting a new ant colony in your home.

You can vacuum up the ants and drown the ants in soapy water if you want to get rid of the ones you can right now. I would dump ants out of vacuum into bucket of soapy water to kill ants. Use warm water and dish soap. Make sure to kill the ants or they will come back in the house.

You can also spray ants with soapy water to kill them. I would try ant gel to kill them and wait a day or 2. this way  the ants will feed the queen with it and the whole colony of ants will die.

You should seal all the cracks and holes in your home after the ants are gone to keep ants and other insects out. Use a insect resistant foam sealer and fill cracks you find inside and outside of your home for insect control. Garden hose has hole that has cracks and dryer and furnace vents do also. Go in cellar look around and look for daylight from any crack and fill with foam sealer on second site below. It stops black ants and other insects from comming in your house.

wind_updoll · Answer

Sounds like they're having they're own holiday celebration, hauling their gifts by the chimney and all. Here in US there's a great product called Taro. It's a syruppy chemical you pour about a 1/2 cm onto a piece OD cardboard, and works well!

Anonymous · Answer

ants are some of the easiest pests to rid your place of because they will take baits straight to the queen. There are gels that do this perfectly

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Tiny black ant infestation?

3 Answers