Alternative solutions

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Alternative solutions

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:45 pm

We recently had ants creeping and crawling around our kitchen. Since we do our best to be a natural household, and also since I hate to kill something that I could just as easily deter or relocate, Miss Dazzling and I tried a few natural solutions.

We tried mint, cloves, and bay leaves, but our particular ants didn't seem to mind.

Citrus, on the other hand is like ant kryptonite! All we're doing is leaving sliced lemons and limes on our counter near their former point of entry, and it's working great.

Let's make this the RI destination for similar solutions.
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby beeline » Thu Jun 13, 2013 2:37 pm

Boric acid also works well on ants, termites, roaches, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boric_acid
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby ShinShinKid » Fri Jun 14, 2013 1:19 pm

Where's that horned lizard GIF when we need it?

Seriously, citrus, boric acid...I recently went foraging for a horned lizard to sop up some pesky black carpenter ants that have moved into my backyard when the 105+F days started to settle in.
I saw plenty of those useful little lizards down in Arivaca, and caught a few, but I can't find any closer to home. If you have pet stores close that might have one, check into that. I love using beneficial animals to combat pesty ones. As I haven't been able to find one yet, I've used some diatomaceous earth that someone gave me to encircle each ant hole I find. It seriously limits their activity, but doesn't last forever.
I also tried the old Ancient God of Weather routine, flooding their sun-baked plain like so much they actually left for a few days. I tried collapsing their tunnels...didn't work. I actually like and appreciate ants, just not in the backyard where the dogs run. My little dog has been chomped before, and it's no fun for either of us.
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Fri Jun 14, 2013 2:44 pm

ShinShinKid » Fri Jun 14, 2013 1:19 pm wrote:Where's that horned lizard GIF when we need it?

Seriously, citrus, boric acid...I recently went foraging for a horned lizard to sop up some pesky black carpenter ants that have moved into my backyard when the 105+F days started to settle in.
I saw plenty of those useful little lizards down in Arivaca, and caught a few, but I can't find any closer to home. If you have pet stores close that might have one, check into that. I love using beneficial animals to combat pesty ones. As I haven't been able to find one yet, I've used some diatomaceous earth that someone gave me to encircle each ant hole I find. It seriously limits their activity, but doesn't last forever.
I also tried the old Ancient God of Weather routine, flooding their sun-baked plain like so much they actually left for a few days. I tried collapsing their tunnels...didn't work. I actually like and appreciate ants, just not in the backyard where the dogs run. My little dog has been chomped before, and it's no fun for either of us.


I'm pretty sure my cat would love to have a lizard around the house.

Until he ate the lizard.
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby ShinShinKid » Fri Jun 14, 2013 4:25 pm

Well, what you need is a dog, to keep that cat busy!
Image

Although I do have some more, rather ethically challenged alternatives:

*What about playing very loud music, a la the US army trying to dislodge Panamanian strongman Noriega? I would suggest some Pantera, or Atrophy, yes, Atrophy...turn that shit up to 11!

*Oh, go buy a large bag of sugar and make a trail leading from their hole to your closest and most despised neighbor?

*Finches? You could buy like, 500 finches, and let them roam free about your house, eating the ants? No, the cat, sorry, I forgot.

*Discover the resonant frequency by which these particular ants are operating, get some expensive equipment and amplify and redirect those bad boys/ girls towards the Atlantic Ocean...granted, it's waay more expensive and I don't even know what I'm talking about, but it's sure to work.
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby justdrew » Fri Jun 14, 2013 8:18 pm

you could pull out and nuke the site from orbit
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Jun 15, 2013 9:37 am

ShinShinKid » Fri Jun 14, 2013 12:19 pm wrote:Where's that horned lizard GIF when we need it?


Image

I've encounter massive ant problems in the past and use TERRO...it works... the inert ingredients are sweet food-based products similar to pancake syrup, the active ingredient is Borax. . they eat it take it back to the nest and eliminates the whole colony
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby ShinShinKid » Sat Jun 15, 2013 1:56 pm

Image
Well played, God. Well played".
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby Nordic » Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:17 pm

I have found that spraying ants with Windex is a great way to massacre them. Seems way less toxic than most other stuff. It kills them instantly!
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby Searcher08 » Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:30 pm

Nordic » Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:17 pm wrote:I have found that spraying ants with Windex is a great way to massacre them. Seems way less toxic than most other stuff. It kills them instantly!


Everytime I hear the word 'Windex' I think of Consuela from Family Guy... :mrgreen:
Nooh Mr Nordic, U eh noa use for ants, Nooooooh....

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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby Schmazo » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:37 pm

Today, after reading this post, I keep thinking about alternative methods for dealing with pesky ants and remembered this Anthropik Network special tribute to the ants:

anthropik.com

"I noticed, when she delivered the plate of fruit, that my Balian hostess was also balancing a tray containing many little green bowls-small, boatshaped platters, each of them woven neatly from a freshly cut section of palm frond. The platters were two or three inches long, and within each was a small mound of white rice. After handing me my breakfast, the woman and the tray disappeared from view behind the other buildings, and when she came by some minutes later to pick up my empty plate, the tray was empty as well.

On the second morning, when I saw the array of tiny rice platters, I asked my hostess what they were for. Patiently, she explained to me that they were offerings for the household spirits. When I inquired about the Balinese term that she used for "spirit," she repeated the explanation in Indonesian, saying that these were gifts for the spirits of the family compound, and I saw that I had understood her correctly. She handed me a bowl of sliced papaya and mango and slipped around the corner of the building. I pondered for a minute, then set down the bowl, stepped to the side of my hut, and peered through the trees. I caught sight of her crouched low beside the corner of one of the other buildings, carefully setting what I presumed was one of the offerings on the ground. Then she stood up with the tray, walked back to the other corner, and set down another offering. I returned to my bowl of fruit and finished my breakfast.

That afternoon, when the rest of the household was busy, I walked back behind the building where I had seen her set down two of the offerings. There were the green platters resting neatly at the two rear corners of the hut. But the little mounds of rice within them were gone.

The next morning I finished the sliced fruit, waited for my hostess to come by and take the empty bowl, then quietly beaded back behind the buildings. Two fresh palm leaf offerings sat at the same spots where the others had been the day before. These were filled with rice. Yet as I gazed at one of them, I suddenly noticed, with a shudder, that one of the kernels of rice was moving. Only when I knelt down to look more closely did I see a tiny line of black ants winding through the dirt to the palm leaf. Peering still closer, I saw that two ants had already climbed onto the offering and were struggling with the uppermost kernel of rice; as I watched, one of them dragged the kernel down and off the leaf, then set off with it back along the advancing line of ants. The second ant took another kernel and climbed down the mound of rice, dragging and pushing, and fell over the edge of the leaf; then a third climbed onto the offering. The column of ants emerged from a thick clump of grass around a nearby palm tree. I walked over to the other offering and discovered another column of tiny ants dragging away the rice kernels. There was an offering on the ground behind my building as well, and a nearly identical line of ants. I walked back to my room chuckling to myself. The balian and his wife had gone to so much trouble to daily placate the household spirits with gifts; only to have them stolen by little six-legged thieves. What a waste! But then a strange thought dawned within me. What if the ants themselves were the "household spirits" to whom the offerings were being made?

The idea became less strange as I pondered the matter. The family compound, like most on this tropical island, had been constructed in the vicinity of several ant colonies. Since a great deal of household cooking took place in the compound, and also the preparation of elaborate offerings of foodstuffs for various rituals and festivals, the grounds and the buildings were vulnerable to infestations by the ant population. Such invasions could range from rare nuisances to a periodic or even constant siege. It became apparent that the daily palm-frond offerings served to preclude such an attack by the natural forces that surrounded (and underlay) the family's land. The daily gifts of rice kept the ant colonies occupied and, presumably, satisfied. Placed in regular, repeated locations at the corners of various structures around the compound, the offerings seemed to establish certain boundaries between the human and ant communities; by honoring this boundary with gifts, the humans apparently hoped to persuade the insects to respect the boundary and not enter the buildings.

The maintenance of such boundaries is the essence of magic, but our civilization has lost its magic, and we have violated every boundary. We've been as short-sighted as the man who hated frogs. Could it ever be as simple as just asking the frog to come back to our stream?"
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby justdrew » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:56 pm

great story, thanks Schmazo.

certainly a good plan, (and certainly possible that such colonies could host spirits too)

here's a related series WELL worth watching...

first ep, but they have them all up on youtube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi

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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby ShinShinKid » Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:17 pm

I think Bali offers up many more predators for those ants. It also seems that the native plant population would draw or keep them, for the most part, out of the habitations. I live in a concrete jungle, with the only plants around in my yard. I've had at least two different types of ants move in after my garden got going. I've ringed they're holes with diatomaceous earth, and they started going over the wall. My offerings are in the form of my garden, and the precious water that comes with it. We are day 19 or 20 at over 105F, and the other day, I reached down to my cauliflower soil beneath like, five inches of mulch to touch cool earth! Yay, I've managed to keep most of my plants alive through this, hang in there, guys! As for you ants, I see you, and I know you are still around, just don't bite my little dog...he's allergic :hrumph
I don't hate ants at all, actually, I once heard, that without them the earth would be covered in something like five feet of dead plant material. So, they're actually considered a beneficial insect by many...just not when they move into the kitchen!
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby conniption » Mon Jul 01, 2013 6:14 pm

I’m not sure this thread is intended to be a discussion about ants, but while we’re on the topic …

… the ants in our yard are a no show this year, and as strange as it may sound, I’m in a bit of a panic about it. Just got off the phone with the bug expert at WSU to ask what could possibly be the cause of the disappearance of our yearly massive infestation of not only red ants, who by now would be tidying up the cracks in the sidewalk and sneaking in to the back hallway to munch on bits of cat food, but also carpenter ants who through the years seem intent on turning our house into a pile of sawdust. But this year they’re gone from the usual visible sightings like on the front steps, the back steps, the patio, etc. I noticed their absence a few weeks ago while cleaning said patio and have kept an eye open for their presence since then…didn’t want to bring it up here, because I was afraid they’d immediately come back as soon as I expressed my concern. (you know how that goes.) As much as I’m glad to have them gone, I’m now more worried they have virtually vanished. (counted three ants that day on the patio and maybe another 20 since then.)

The lady at WSU said it was an anomaly. She said most likely the causes would be either weather related saying we’ve had quite a bit of rain (as if that would ever slow down carpenter ants) although admitting the ants at her house were doing fine and it’s been sunny and warm for the past week, or insecticide related – and we didn’t use insecticides…or she said “…maybe you’re just not seeing them.” That would be hard to do.

So now, me being me, I sit and wonder – Fukushima? Chemtrails? Radio waves? Microwaves?

What?

Thx for reading.
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Re: Alternative solutions

Postby justdrew » Mon Jul 01, 2013 8:38 pm

maybe a neighbor called an exterminator or one of those pesticides where 'they take it back to the nest' worked
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