Desperately need Cat safe method to annihilate ants!!

[silent meowlook]

This is it!! I have finally been pushed over the edge of sanity by ANTS!! I haven’t slept, I can’t eat, all I do is battle these ANTS!! They are winning. I am defeated by ANTS!! My cats have been locked up in their room all day for safety. Cats are confused and disturbed. They are also embarrassed because these ANTS are really kicking my butt.

I have literally trails of ANTS coming in the doors, windows, from the walls, and going under the wall to wall stupid carpet that I can’t do anything about. I have ants on my sofa, my coffee table, in my shoes!

I spent last night and today cleaning, first with vinegar, and later with bleach, only to have them come right back marching in formation. I have bought 5 different types of ant baits and set them everywhere there are ANTS. I have begged them to leave and I’ve tried Vlad the Impaler techniques, but they are so tiny I can’t get their heads on a pin to set out as a warning.

I’ve tried natures miracle and dish soap. Both my cats have asthma, which is why they are locked up. I can’t do anything anywhere in the house without these ANTS getting involved.

I’ve tried citrus, vinegar, bleach, natures miracle and dish soap. I used a vacuums and then carpet cleaner.

Any help would be awesome!

 

[StefanZ]

Safest and best is probably diatomeae earth, DE. Best take food grade, or human grade.

Works nicely for most worms and insects, both outside and inside human or cat body. So dont take the cheapest brands, which are for using in say, swimming pools.

Its old diacetomeus planktons from long time ago, whom are now dug out as earth... And used against worms and insects.

 

[Caspers Human]

The only reason ants keep coming into the kitchen is to find food. Once they find food, they leave scent trails back to the nest which leads other ants to follow. If you get rid of the food crumbs and bits of stuff that always collect in the corners, ants won't have any more reason to come around.

Spray and wipe all your counters and all your cupboards where you keep food with a good kitchen/household cleaner.
Dr. Bronner makes a good one that we use, often, but just good, old fashion, Formula 409 works just as well. Take your pick.
Doing this gets rid of all the ant trails that they use to find food. You wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

After that, find some kind of aromatic substance you can apply to the counters. Peppermint oil. Grapefruit. You can even use coffee.
We use Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. Wipe it around the edges of the counters and in the corners. Make a line all around the counter. Ants don't like strong smelling substances. Their antennae are super sensitive. Peppermint oil interferes with the ants sense of smell and their ability to find food so they avoid the stuff.

Put the cat food in a shallow bowl of water to keep ants out. It will be hard for them to cross the mote. It'll help keep any stray ants out of the cat's food.

Mix some "Twenty Mule Team" borax in some honey or maple syrup or Karo syrup.
Put a half teaspoon full of this mixture in an old bottle cap and place them in the corners near the places where you have seen ants.
The boarx isn't harmful to people or animals unless they eat a lot of it. No worse than laundry soap.
For ants, though, it's toxic but it doesn't kill them right away. They take it back to the nest and feed it to the queen and they young. It will take some time but the entire colony will eventually die off.

But, first, clean the kitchen even if it's alreaady clean. You've got to get rid of those ant trails or else they'll keep coming back until you do.

 

[silent meowlook]

Sadly, I tried food grade Diatomaceous Earth, from the health food store about 15 years ago. Within a week of using it, my cat Rusty (gone from this earth now, but always in my heart), started sneezing and developed chronic rhinitis. I worked for a specialist then and he said that Rusty could have sniffed up some of it and because of the sharpness of it, it remained the rest of his life. The specialist I worked for was kind of a jerk anyway and he might of just been saying that to make me feel guilty. I don't know. I did as much testing as I could then, short of an MRI, CT scan or rhinoscopy. I had always refused to anesthetize him due to his health issues. I know plenty of people that use it with no problems.

 

[blumarine916]

I agree with Caspers Human . Ants keep coming back because there is abundance of food in your house. It could be tiny pieces of cat food, cookie crumbs, kibble. The only way for them to stop coming is to make sure your surfaces and floors don’t have pieces of food. I live in a tropical country where ants are always around. I get as annoyed as you when I see them marching on my walls or cabinets. Yeek!

What I do is to use a water based insecticide to spray them. Then look at their line to see the source. Destroy that source, cover whatever tiny holes they are creeping from. That always works, until the next time they return. I understand it is not easy to make sure your floors don’t have bits and pieces of food when you have cats. I have the same problem. My cats are messy eaters too . Just gonna clean the floor more often.

Good luck in your battle with ants.

 

[tabbytom]

Any help would be awesome!

First and foremost, walk around and see where the ants are coming from. They can be coming from the ground from outside, in cracks on walls or cracks in furniture or cupboard, especially kitchen cupboard as the kitchen is where the food is.

Once you find where they are emerging from and if it's from outside up from the ground, use hot water and pour directly where they come out from and flood the nest with hot water. If it's indoor, let's say it's at the window sill or bathroom or kitchen sink places that are ok to get wet and if your cats are around, you can use hot water and pour where they emerge. Other places if you have a steam cleaner, you can use the hot steam and steam up their nest. But you have to be careful as hot steam may change the colors on paint whether it's the cupboard or wall.

Hope water is safe as long as your cats are not around so that they don't get scalded and hot water is non toxic.

Here's an article - how-to-keep-ants-out-of-cat-food

 

[Caspers Human]

Safest and best is probably [diatomaceous] earth,

Diatomaceous earth doesn't work well for ants. It works on bugs like roaches and fleas but not so well for ants.

Diatomaceous earth is a microscopic abrasive. It is the mineralized leftovers from microscopic creatures that lived 10,000 years ago that has been collected and purified. When bugs crawl through it, they pick up tiny amounts and it acts like sandpaper against their bodies which eventually abrades the waxy coating off their bodies and causes them to slowly dehydrate and die.

Diatomaceous earth is messy. It gets all over the place unless you are very meticulous about how you use it. It is a micro-abrasive...basically microscopic sand...so there is a chance that it can abrade and dull some surfaces. Another thing that others have mentioned is that it can be irritating to the airway of anybody or any animal that breathes it in. As others say, that can cause problems.

I would say that diatomaceous earth is okay as a backup. I wouldn't use it as a front-line defense. Only after using other methods, first.

Borax is a good way to kill ants. You can buy borax at the grocery store, in the same aisle as you would find laundry detergent or household cleaners. That's it's main use. Laundry and house cleaning. It's not good to eat but it's no more dangerous than any other cleaner that you would use. In fact, many laundry detergents have borax as an ingredient. Just use common sense and keep kids and animals away, the same as you would do with anything else. If you spill it, clean it up. If you get it on you, wash it off. Of course, don't eat it. Even if you do accidentally ingest it, you might get sick and throw up but it won't cause lasting problems unless you swallow a lot of it but, since the stuff tastes so bad, nobody would ever actually eat it. You don't have to ask my how I know that it tastes so bad!

Mix borax with something sweet that ants will eat. Honey. Syrup. Sugar water. Whatever you think they will eat and take back to the nest. Forager ants will carry it back to the nest and feed it to the others, eventually killing the whole colony.

Put some of your mixture in old bottle caps and leave them out where ants will find them. They will carry it back to the nest and poison the others. If you are concerned about cats or kids getting into it, put it under cover. Put it inside an empty, plastic butter container with holes poked into it and snap a lid on it. That way, ants can get in but others can't. Replace your bait stations frequently to keep them fresh.

If you go to the store and buy "Tero" ant killer (or similar brands), the main ingredient is usually borax. Look on the label to find out.
If you'd rather use a store bought product, they work as advertised. Since they often come in little, plastic holders that keep kids and animals from getting into them, you might find it more convenient than mixing the stuff, yourself. If you want to save money and don't mind doing some of the work, yourself, you can buy a big box of "Twenty Mule Team" borax and a bottle of "Karo" corn syrup. That ought to be enough to last for years at a fraction of the price of buying ready made products.

All of that aside, the BEST defense against ants is not to give them any reason to come into your house. If there is food laying around, they WILL find it. Crumbs and bits of food that collect in corners are probably the biggest draw. Ants will come until every last crumb of food has been scavenged.

To be honest, ants are very good at cleaning up all those little bits of food that end up on the floors and on the counters.

That's why I call them "Nature's Little Janitors."

 

[Leroy17]

I agree with Casper’s Human,
The borax mix will help kill the entire colony. We have a terrible problem with ants here come spring time. Terro works exactly as advertized. When we had a problem in the fall it seemed Terro was not working as well. Bought Advion Ant bait on Amazon. All ants gone within a few days.
The baits are put where you see ants. Easy to put out on cardboard or similar. Many more ants will come out and eat this poison and carry some back to the colony which in turn will kill the queen. I have used them and put a book upside the wall to make sure the cats didn’t get it on their paws or anything. Both types of baits worked miraculously for us.
You can read the reviews on Amazon.
Our cats had no interest in them by the way.
Hope this helps!

 

[Tobermory]

I use the Terro ant bait that Caspers Human mentions. They eat it (a lot also drown in it) and take it back to the nest so it poisons the rest. Takes awhile to get them under control. I also use Maggie’s Farm Ant and Roach Killer which kills them outright. I also use that around the foundation of the house (outside) and at all outside entrances into the house. It has a strong cinnamon smell, btw.

 

[Caspers Human]

If you have ants outside the house that are coming inside, use powdered lime. (Calcium carbonate.)

Rake all the leaves and debris away from the foundation of the house about two feet back. Apply a line of powdered lime up against the foundation, a few inches wide. Be sure to make a continuous, unbroken circle all around the house. Use a plastic scoop or an, old, empty coffee can to sprinkle a line, all the way around.

Ants will not be able to cross the barrier. Lime is very caustic and will burn the ants if they try to cross it. One treatment with lime should last the entire summer but, if you need to, you can apply it again. I've never had to use it more than once per season.

White lime comes in big sacks. You can usually get it at your local garden center. It is commonly used as a fertilizer or soil conditioner in gardens. It is pretty messy and it is caustic. Don't breathe in the dust. Wear a face mask. Wear gloves and goggles while handling it. Be sure to wash up with plenty of water after handling it. Launder your clothes separately, too.

You can also sprinkle some lime on any anthills that you find outside. You can do the same with borax.
Just remember that these things will probably kill the grass so don't do it any areas where appearance is important.

These are outdoor methods, only.

Indoor methods are to clean, apply repellents and put out bait, in that order. Afterward, use the lime and/or borax outdoors.

It takes work but, if you do them faithfully, these methods should get rid of all your ant problems in a relatively short time.

 

[danteshuman]

Call an exterminator and get pet safe stuff! My exterminator used a clear any bait gel. He only applied a couple drops and he applied it in places where my cat couldn’t get to it (ceiling, inside cabinets, etc.) It worked! I strongly suggest you go this route.

 

[silent meowlook]

Hi all.
Thank you everyone for the suggestions.
I don't have food in my house. I don't cook and I rarely eat at home and when I do, it is prepared food. The cat's food isn't left out. They eat canned and get 20 minutes with their food, then I pick it up and throw it out.

 

[danteshuman]

I have had ants in Orange County CA follow my coffee maker for the water! They didn’t want cat food or human food, they were after water! Also when they they fixed the wooden balcony above my condo by replacing the termite ridden boards; the ants disappeared! (Black ants.) So your ants could be after water or a dry place when it is pouring outside. Your ants could also be a sign you have a much bigger termite problem. In orange country it was the land of ants and they couldn’t get under my foundation to kill the ants...... but the ant bait in the walls & spraying outside around my condo worked! In my current apartment the ant bait in the cabinets and the ceiling work. If/when I get them again I will let it go until I get a thick line to follow, then report it to my apartment manager & show it to the exterminator (so they know where to place the poison.)

 

[BellaBlue82]

Safest and best is probably diatomeae earth, DE. Best take food grade, or human grade.

Works nicely for most worms and insects, both outside and inside human or cat body. So dont take the cheapest brands, which are for using in say, swimming pools.

Its old diacetomeus planktons from long time ago, whom are now dug out as earth... And used against worms and insects.

I agree diatomaceous earth will work, and yes do not use those made for pools or outdoors as it can be harmful to pets.

You can also try to boil some water and then put a bit of dish soap in it and pour it right over the ants and where they are "housing". That's usually what I do, lol sadly I get ants near my back door ever year.