Well, I have done tons of research and had lots of experience with this, unfortunately. The first thing to know is that there tons of different kinds of ants, and they all respond to different things--prefer different baits, are deterred by different deterrents.
The first summer we lived here, we had some. I sprinkled the oatmeal all around the patio. Within a half hour, the oatmeal was gone, and we saw maybe 3 more ants in the house that year.
The next spring, they were back, big time. So I sprinkled the oatmeal again. They did not TOUCH it, and proceeded to invade en masse. I used a natural spray I bought at Home Depot (made with plant oils, like spearmint and peppermint and some other stuff), and it worked really well. I pretty much managed to keep them under control that way, and was happy, because I was pregnant at the time.
Last year, from March to September, we were invaded again, worse than ever. I tried everything, and when they finally invaded every single kitchen cabinet and got inside sealed containers, and I was in tears over it every other day, I broke down. We called Terminix, and they sprayed this horrible smelling stuff all around my house, inside and out. It did absolutely nothing to deter the ants, and I was SO upset about letting them spray in the house. My DH discovered he had half a container of Ortho Home Perimeter Defense, or something like that, and sprayed the base of the foundation along the entire back and one side of the house at night after the ants had left the house (mostly). I woke up the next day to a clean kitchen
: I'm not happy about it, but the bottom line was that they were gone, and he didn't have to spray inside ever. If I had to use anything inside, I used the natural spray.
Last summer we tried: Borax and a sweet bait (honey or maple syrup, this is basically what Terro is, they liked it, but it didn't seem to do anything to lessen the horde), Borax and a peanut butter bait (some ants prefer protein to sugar, though not ours), cinnamon (they went right over it), basil, bay leaf, vinegar (didn't do a thing, they crawled right out of the puddles), and the natural spray. The natural spray worked best--it deterred and killed on contact. But it didn't last very long, and as it turned out, the ants were coming in through the whole rear wall of the house. They were in every room that shared that wall. I hate using the poison, but I was afraid I was seriously in danger of having a breakdown last year.
On a side note, if it's really bad and you don't have a problem with killing them, it definitely helps to figure out where they're coming from and destroy the colony with boiling water (or a friend of ours used bleach, ugh). We couldn't figure it out at all. We had "crazy ants," which don't travel in lines, or in any discernible pattern, and they were just all over the foundation. At one point, we thought we found the hill, but it was quite far away and we didn't see much activity, so we weren't sure. Well, about halfway through the summer, after we'd resorted to the poison and had it under control, we had to have our aboveground pool liner replaced. As I was walking away while they were ripping it out, the lead guy called out, "Hey, have you been having any problem with ants lately?" I turned back, and the old liner, uprights, surrounding white stones, pool guys--all were covered with ants. Even the pool guys were kind of freaking out. The lead guy (the owner) was super impressed with my spray though. He turned out to be quite the environmentalist, so he was excited to find something he could arm his guys with for when they encountered bugs on the job. So at least now we know where to start this year. Just two more months before we go on the offensive
(but really,
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Good luck to you. Just remembering what we went through last summer makes me want to cry. We had to live with all our food in bins for weeks--and actually, they found their way in there too! Ugh...
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