*&(@#$%

[mattbell]

The last thing you need to see at 3am on your way to bed after a very long day is a full-scale ant invasion of your kitchen.

The ants weren't there at 1am when I came home.  Either I somehow didn't notice for half an hour while standing in the kitchen or the ants only discovered the area after I came home.  It's possible one of the boxes I brought in from outside had some ants on it, and the ants on the box discovered the kitchen trash. 

The ant activity was a mix of a tightly focused trail and an unusually large swath of explorers.  Perhaps this is what the early stages of an ant invasion look like... new food has been discovered, so there's probably more food nearby.  It's worth their while to search around for it.

I'm still stunned that a single ant can lead to an invasion of thousands in a span of two hours.  They're amazing creatures except when they're in your own house.

I spent an hour cleaning the floor with cleaners that chemically tell the ants to fuck off and setting up bait traps along their path.  Woohoo. 

Comments

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

They invaded our room earlier last night and got to the cat food. I put a trap on the windowsill and that seems to have distracted them.

I had to move the traps you put out - they were in the path of humans and felines alike.

[djdigit.livejournal.com]

I've found this to be effective (YMMV, etc, etc): red can of RAID sprayed at ingress point(s) (but watch out for kitties and spray more heavily outside than inside if possible) followed by manual genocide on ants already inside. Then wash your hands and air the place out 'cause that RAID stinks like hell... but the ants sure don't like it.

[iron-sky.livejournal.com]

Seconded on RAID. Whenever I've used their blue "Ant" spray on a trail/entrance, the ants died instantly and none have ever come back through the location or even anywhere close. Their "Ant & Roach" spray didn't have the same never-come-back effect, though that can was several years old.

We had an ant infestation here a while ago, and we tried at first to stick to cat-friendly solutions. Cleaning and de-scenting the trails, caulking the entrance points, cinnamon, etc. Nothing helped, so I finally went back to RAID (which worked) and covered up the spots I had sprayed so our cats couldn't wander into them.

[djdigit.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I'll have to try the blue can next time. We occasionally have other critters coming in the house (including springtails), so I opted for a more broad-spectrum spray. Now I'm thinking I should just keep one can of each on hand. :)

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I would worry about spraying RAID outside too since there is an outdoor kitty (not ours).