[pamperedpeterson]

We have a small ant intrustion in our bathroom, and we are considering hiring a company to get rid of them. What company have you had the best experience with?

[DivasMomma]

but to be honest, the spray will keep ants away, for maybe a season if you are lucky. Ants just always come back Best bet is to pick up quite a few ant "hotels". they always worked pretty well for us in small areas of the house

HTH

[deedee1231]

I have used American Pest Control. I think they are a local company. That was a year ago and the ants are now back in full force. I don't want to spend anymore $$ on an exterminator because I don't think it is very effective in the long run. A friend of mine told me that you can use instant grits to kill the colony. You just feed the instant grits to the ants and when they eat them they die. I don't know if it works at all but I am going to try it. In my case the ant hills are in the crawl space under my house so I am just going to scatter some instant grits down there and see if it works. It is supposed to take a few weeks to work.

In the meantime I am using a combination of things to keep them out of the house. I wipe down my counters and baseboards with white vinegar and caulk up any cracks and crevices they are entering through and then dust the areas where I have seen them with baby powder. It does keep them under control, if not completely gone.

[DivasMomma]

i JUST remembered a trick reading Dee's post...

a friend of mine had lemon wedges around the baseboards and doors in her house...she told me the lemon wedges keep the ants away! Its much safer to use this tactic when u have kids or pets in the home! She said after she put them around, there were 0 ants anywhere!!! She changed the lemon wedges once every couple of weeks (after they were fully dried out)

I thought it was a great idea!!

[Samual]

If you remove food and surfaces that have come into contact with food, you are very unlikely to get ants, have a good clean and when the ants have gone you need to look for a hole they are using to get in. If they find there is nothing to gain, they soon leave, I found this out at uni where cleaning was an alien concept to my house mates.

[deedee1231]

I keep my home very clean, thank you very much Samual. Furthermore, I do not have food coming into contact with any of the surfaces in my two bathrooms, which is where both PamperedPeterson and I have ants in our homes. I very much doubt that she eats in her bathroom either! I clean both bathrooms daily, including the toilets and sinks and the ants still continue to enter. I personally think they are coming in for the water source and frankly, no matter how much I clean the bathrooms I simply cannot remove the water source. Best bet is to find some way to get rid of the ants!

[KR258]

how bout roaches? (not even sure I spelled that right) I live in an apartment in FL and find it almost impossible to keep those yucky bugs out!

[DivasMomma]

what size/color are they? in fl i know we had issues with the flying/water ones...if they are tiny, its a dirt problem (not your fault could be inside of walls/cabinets and its the apartments issue) they should provide extermination anyway...if its the water kind, roach hotels are the best bet..HTH

[KR258]

I'm pretty sure we've had all sizes...although haven't seen the super big ones in about 7 months. I don't see them unless I get up at night...they're always black and usually about a half inch or so big and smaller. We did sign up for the exterminator to come out every month but have only seen him twice and have lived here for almost 3 years now. Don't think we're going to be moving and I have always had a huge bug issue (they scare me way too much even though I know they don't hurt)

We also have these clear looking bugs every once in awhile and I'm not even sure what those are! They like play dead when they see you and when they think you're not looking they run away VERY fast. I usually see them on the wall...although once last year I had one fall from my ceiling fan onto my keyboard......Scared me so bad I almost peed!! It layed there for a few minutes and when I got close to see what it was it flipped over and ran away so quick I lost it!

[DivasMomma]

we had the same issue in the old apartment...they were in our bathroom and kitchen...both palces of course that can be the dirtiest no matter how clean you keep them.

I noticed in the bathroom they were always near the water...tub, sink, toilet. The only thing that i figured out that would keep them away for a few days was to spray a bleach solution around the egdes of the walls, tub, and toilet. They wouldnt be in there for about 3 days or so. When I saw them back (also always at night) I would do the same thing.

In the kitchen our landlord was just lazy and he put everything together very cheap. There were gaps in btwn the stove and counters/cabinets. Food crumbs would go down there and we couldnt move anything to clean in there, so i would pour some of the bleach solution down the gaps, and it would work a few days again.

thats about all that worked, other the the roach hotels, but with little ones its hard to put them anywhere that would make a difference...