I know this is an horrible subject but I was just wondering if anyone on here had ever had a problem with ants.  Over the last few weeks ants keep appearing in our living room and we can't for the life of us find where they are coming from.  They keep appearing in ones and twos and they are freaking me out, I hate them.  I keep thinking that I am going to come down one morning and there will be a colony of them marching through the kitchen.  We have tried spraying ant killer near where we think they are and have put ant bait down but to no avail, they still keep appearing.
Any suggestions please?

I have had an ant problem for years, had the council, private firms out and every year they come back, I currently have a few residing in the bathroom.
A couple of years ago I had thousands in the kitchen, the flying ones, that was like something out of a horror film.
I got a private firm in who drilled holes in the outside walls and sprayed their stuff, thought they had got them all. He was busy writing out his bill (approx £50) when I saw a couple coming out the corner of the kitchen, he went outside sprayed through an air vent and the nightmare started. They are attracted to light so they came flying out from the wall and straight for the window, it was black.
There was easily 4-5 thousand dropping on this mans head, floor, benches.
He opened the window and out most of them went.
They are awful, but harmless.
We put ant powder down all around the skirting boards, outside on the air vents, anywhere they can get in. It does calm the situation down.
I have been told that without actually getting to the nest you will never get rid of them.
Make sure all benches etc. are always clear of cumbs etc.
The powder we found best was only 99p or something similar from Wilkinsons, their own make.
good luck!

We moved into this house in Dec 4yrs ago-the house downstairs was crawling in them! I was in tears for weeks-hate the things, crawling up the children as they were playing yuk!
We tried all sorts to get rid, evenually paid for the professionals who sprayed inside & out, they said not to bother with diy sprays powders etc.
We still get them o.s. in the garage garden walls etc.
The annoying thing was our old adjoining n'bours said they did'nt have any ants, they moved last yr the new n'bours had the house sprayed immediately said it was riddled with them!
We both now get the houses sprayed together get abit of money off.
I also use Asda's ant powder-that seems to do the job inbetween professional spraying. 

I had ants in my kitchen once and got rid of them by putting down a sticky sugary stuff.  The ants take it back to the nest and it poisons them.  Can't remember what it was called as it was a few years ago but they never came back.
Lara x

Hi Anna,

Before I had our son, I worked at a hairdressers, and in the back where there was a bit of a kitchen, and where we were supposed to eat lunch (!) they had a really bad ant infestation, the ants had tunneled under walls, and made the building unsafe, you could actually get on the floor (if you dared!!) and look through their tunnels to the next rooms! Then when it got hot we had the flying ants, which are even worse! Eventually the owner, got someone out to spray them, and we never saw another one again - alive.

It used to freak me out, I can't stand anything that crawls of flies, gives me shivers just thinking about it. We moved out of our first flat together because we started getting them when it warmed up in the summer.

If they are out side the best thing you can go, even if it means digging up a bit of the garden ( :O ) is pour boiling water from the kettle on the nest, but inside I would say get the proper men out.

Good luck :D

Natalie

At the moment its just odd ones.  At first they started appearing near the computer (think they were trying to see what was on champdogs! :-)  ) and then they went on the unit next to the computer.  My OH pulled the unit out but found nothing at all, he has sprayed behind the wall unit and looked all around the vents outside but still nothing.  He thinks maybe the nest is under the floorboards of the living room and that they are coming under the carpet :-(   I am paranoid about them and keep checking to see if there are any about.   I have found only 1 so far today and I think it was two yesterday.  They make me itch when I think of them.

I don't know how I'd cope with the flying ones though they sound awful :-(

I THINK the council will come out for about £20, even if you own your house. Try and get something done about them before it gets much hotter, else you will have flying ones, and they are not nice!!!

Natalie

Oooh Nooo don't say that Natalie, I will die if I see flying ones in here as well :-0.   I will move into the shed with the guinea pigs I think, I would rather cope with the spiders than ants.  Perhaps it would be a good excuse for having a new carpet now though :-)  We are meant to be having one after the conservatory and the kitchen but if they have to pull the carpet up to get under the floorboards then I suppose there is a danger that it won't go back again and I will have to have a new carpet now! :-)

Weve only had a few the past few days but every year i fill in all the holes/gaps /edges with that rubber filler in the house, did the same for wasps couple years ago, got ants in bathroom ( in bungalow) this morning ,more filling edges in round lino tiles,outside i use boiling water, hate them, yuk!

Oh I glad I'm not the only one having this problem.  I always clean up crumbs and things right away so I can't see what is attracting them.  I haven't found any upstairs yet (although my son is learning the guitar and that and my daughters singing is enough to keep even the bravest ant away I should imagine :-) )   I will keep spraying the nicks between the skirting boards.  What annoys me is that my OH bought some stuff in a tube which is meant to be excellent for keeping them away but then just sticks it in the pantry on the shelf- perhaps he thinks the tube will scare them away :-)

Oh its a hard life Anna ;) LOL

We are having wooden floors put down throughout downstairs, a few weeks after we get back from hols, I am scared what they will find under this carpet!!! Main reason we are doing it, is because my son decided to 'decorate' the carpet, leather sofas, walls, furniture, you name it, he covered it with a lovely blue colour poster paint!!! I managed to get it off of everywhere except the carpet and walls, so painted the walls, that had only been done for 6 months! and now it is going to cost us an arm and a leg to do the floor. We can't just do one room, because it is all quite open plan, and I don't like to have different floors in all the different rooms. I will be glad to get it done though, even just having a bit of the floor blue is making the whole room look a mess!

Hi Natalie,

Your son sounds a proper little terror :-)  My kids haven't done anything like that although my four year old decided to mop the kitchen yesterday whilst I was vacuuming the bedrooms.  It was absolutely wet through all over and she thought I would be pleased!  She can't wait to be a mummy so that she can mop the kitchen she says.

Ahhh bless her! :D

He isn't too bad most of the time, mind you the reason we painted the living room prior to him decorating it, was because he had pulled the wallpaper off! We didn't see it too much of a bad thing as it was the paper that the previous owner had put up, so we were going to decorate it anyway :D Wish he would start on the hall way paper, so we have the excuse to do that next!!! LOL

Natalie

I hate ants. Every year we get them so what we do is to put nippon around the outside of the house on the floor/wall to stop them getting through to the house and in areas away from the dogs where we think they may come in, Its good stuff but very harmfull to dogs so be carefull where you use it. Stops them ants staight away, luckilly they seem to appear at the front door and side wall inbetween the houses so the dogs dont have access to those areas unsupervised. Hoover up any ones you see and put the powder down anywhere you think it will help.

hi... there was a chap on the tv the other morning talking about pest control. He advised a sugar based liquid bait containing borax to be placed at points of entry to the house. the worker ants take it back to the nest and somehow it makes them destroy the nest themselves. the idea being that you have to kill the queen ant otherwise the problem just comes back.

ive not tried this myself as i dont have this problem, but thought those that do might be interested. :-)

Thanks for the replies everyone :-)  I have only found one so far today but I am forever on 'ant-check'.  They are clever little things though because they seem to know when they have been spotted and run like mad :D

Jane is right :)  You have to stop the queen ant from reproducing.  At the moment you are only killing the worker ants that aren't really missed!!  You need to give them something that they will take back to the nest.  By the way the flying ants are the same thing as the little black ants...Just sexually mature versions :D
Sarah

You get the flying ants on a nice dry summers day as they leave the nest to form new colonies. We have had some large ant nests under the patio. Have  been told to try curry powder and dried yeast, but not tried them as yet.

Horrible little critters

Hi
     My mother in law used to say sprinkle fresh lemon juice near to the spot the ants enter and repeat it everyday and in the summer x2 aday ....seemed to work for here may be worth a try?

Johnson's Raid - cockroach and crawling insect killer usually sees them off.

Thanks everyone for the replies, but I think we have now solved our 'ant' problem.  Just after I posted last week, my partner decided to get a torch and he found a hole in the wall at the top of the skirting board and saw some ants going in and coming out.  He put ant killer in the hole and the ones that were already out wouldn't go near the hole after that so he killed them off.  After about a week of regularly spraying with ant killer we seem to have solved the problem.  I am keeping an eye out in case there are any more but I am hoping that the Queen ant has died off now. :-)