ants

[delfin]

hello mamas, let's see if one of you can help us.
we live in a desert area, we find scorpions on a daily basis, spiders, centepides...we are ok with them. we gently capture them with a jar an free them in the garden. we know they were here before and we have never been stung or bitten.
but now, we have these very very aggressive ants. we dont let any food outside, i have tried mopping with vinegar, putting salt in the entrance of their house and they are still here. every day a sweep cement that is crumbling from the wall, they live there. i really dont like to use chemicals, but this is too much. i dont enjoy my kitchen 'cause they will bite me and it's painful.
what can i do?
thanks!

[*Melissa*]

I've had great success when nothing else worked by using straight undiluted eucalyptus essential oil on a cotton ball. I put it around where they came in, along their trail, etc, and usually don't even need to reapply it for almost a week.

Hope it works for you too!

[naturelover]

Every year we have an ant infestation (either when the weather gets too cold or too hot), the ants come swarming in..URG...but as soon as I see them, I put little drops of borax & maple syrup mixture along their trail and that seems to keep them at bay. I do a half/half mixture and you can find borax at most grocery stores. If you don't have maple syrup, you can use corn syrup (Karo) or sugar - this is used to attract them to the borax! If it doesn't work after a day, try making a mixture with more maple syrup/sugar because some recipes call for 3 part sugar/1 part borax!

[DesireeH]

We get them horribly too. They bite! DS is allergic and get huge welts and puffs up so I have been using chemicals (the ant "chalk" from a local swapmeet. It says "non-toxic" in english but the rest is in chinese writing so I couldnt tell you what is really in it.) It's been cold and when it rains they come in droves through outlet plugs or anything.....

[tamagotchi]

I've heard not to use the ant chalk because it's toxic. Here are a couple of old news articles:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...4/HO237330.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...OG4O8HUFK1.DTL