As I posted, the basement reno is underway. Unfortunately, I have a bit of an ant problem.
Crap.
They don't appear to be pharoah ants, which is a good thing. But they are getting in, which is a bad thing.
The first bunch popped up about a month ago. Just a few little reddish guys in the living room. I eventually traced those to the outside, where they were under the threshold of the patio door. I thought that a bit weird, since there's nothing for them to dig in back there. I hit them with some Drax, and that seems to have done most of the job.
Then I spotted a few in the basement. Not a great sign. A quick outside inspection shows they've been digging along the space between the foundation and the driveway.
I was going to use this recipe for an easy poison using borax and sugar. But when the walls came down in the basement, I got a new surprise. Under one of the windows there's a nice big gap where they seem to be getting in from the outside. Argh!
So, it's off to HD to get some spray foam and fill that gap. Then I'm going to dust the whole perimeter, and end off with some tasty boric acid bait. Hopefully this will do the trick.
And if not...Orkin!
Update: I picked up some Ortho ant traps as well, just to see. Those use boric acid. Rather than the dust or powder, which is just an earth product that cuts their little bodies to shreds (but doesn't kill the queen), I got a dropper and a sprayer of poison. The dropper I'm using around known sites, while the sprayer is giving me coverage around the whole perimeter of the foundation. I did fill the gap under the window with some expanding foam, so that should do the trick there, at least to keep them out. The battle rages on!
Crap.
They don't appear to be pharoah ants, which is a good thing. But they are getting in, which is a bad thing.
The first bunch popped up about a month ago. Just a few little reddish guys in the living room. I eventually traced those to the outside, where they were under the threshold of the patio door. I thought that a bit weird, since there's nothing for them to dig in back there. I hit them with some Drax, and that seems to have done most of the job.
Then I spotted a few in the basement. Not a great sign. A quick outside inspection shows they've been digging along the space between the foundation and the driveway.
I was going to use this recipe for an easy poison using borax and sugar. But when the walls came down in the basement, I got a new surprise. Under one of the windows there's a nice big gap where they seem to be getting in from the outside. Argh!
So, it's off to HD to get some spray foam and fill that gap. Then I'm going to dust the whole perimeter, and end off with some tasty boric acid bait. Hopefully this will do the trick.
And if not...Orkin!
Update: I picked up some Ortho ant traps as well, just to see. Those use boric acid. Rather than the dust or powder, which is just an earth product that cuts their little bodies to shreds (but doesn't kill the queen), I got a dropper and a sprayer of poison. The dropper I'm using around known sites, while the sprayer is giving me coverage around the whole perimeter of the foundation. I did fill the gap under the window with some expanding foam, so that should do the trick there, at least to keep them out. The battle rages on!
0 comments:
Post a Comment