The other day I came home to find thousands of ants running up and down my kitchen cupboards to my Senseo coffee machine, which I hadnt used for a couple of weeks. Underneath the machine was flooded and there was a mass of dead ants.

I've now chucked the machine and instead they are going under my fridge. There is a constant stream of ants ferrying the dead and dying under there and dumping them in a huge pile. Meanwhile, next to where they are coming out from under my dishwasher, they are dumping what looks like small bits of sawdust/wood chips [think it may be from when i had central heating installed a couple of months back]. They have even managed to find a matchstick somewhere and dump that on their wood pile !

What are they up to ? Its fun watching them go about their tasks in a very organised fashion, but do I need to worry ? Are they gonna do any damage to the house etc ?

:gag: those things get everywhere. You can get pen type things which you draw a line around any points of entry, i.e. doors and the ants shouldn't cross it. Or you can get 'ant traps' which are like little tins of shoe polish which you poke a hole in and they should go in, get the poison, hand it around to their little anty friends then hopefully they'll all die.

It sounds like they're building themselves a nice little new home under the dishwasher so I'd suggest the measures above unless you want to be overrun by lots of your own little baby ants and the 'orrible flying variety.

Spray 'em with bleach!!!

Try using ant powder as well. Find out where they are coming from and blitz their routes.

...or let them build their city and watch in wonder.

Nah, blitz 'em.

Originally posted by rtapper
The other day I came home to find thousands of ants running up and down my kitchen cupboards to my Senseo coffee machine, which I hadnt used for a couple of weeks. Underneath the machine was flooded and there was a mass of dead ants.

I've now chucked the machine and instead they are going under my fridge. There is a constant stream of ants ferrying the dead and dying under there and dumping them in a huge pile. Meanwhile, next to where they are coming out from under my dishwasher, they are dumping what looks like small bits of sawdust/wood chips [think it may be from when i had central heating installed a couple of months back]. They have even managed to find a matchstick somewhere and dump that on their wood pile !

What are they up to ? Its fun watching them go about their tasks in a very organised fashion, but do I need to worry ? Are they gonna do any damage to the house etc ?
lol

i think you should change your medication man :P

Urgh ants, they get everywhere! No matter how interesting their runs around the kitchen may be i'd have got rid by now.

I saw one ant in my kitchen the other week. Now, ants don't tend to be on their own so I was on the look out for others. Found lots of them in a large plant pot in the garden. Used some powder/spray stuff and haven't seen any since.

There may be a nest under your fridge....I had an ants' nest under my video cabinet a few years ago.

I found the only way to get rid was to put ant powder at the "entrance" to the nest, and all around the video cabinet.

Talcum powder suffocates them, so you could use that to block anywhere you think is an entrance to the nest.

Just went down to get breakfast and there are even more of them than yesterday ! Its a heaving mass under the fridge. Yuck !

Will get every ant killer known to man [and woman] and do my worst tonight. Thanx 4 the advice :thumbsup:

Wilkinsons sell an ant spray that is invisible (the powder looks awful in the house) and as leanneisatre said bleach (domestos is king) soon shifts the little gits.

I used to douse the little devils in as much ant powder as humanly possible and the get loads of it in to their lair until it was pretty much stuffed full and then entomb them by sealing their entrance with a mastic gun.

Boiling water kills them ( I know it's almost evil) but not the easiest option if in your house but good for garden nests.

Why not take photos (or a video) of them and post it?

Be nice to see photographic evidence, better still, timelapse photography ...

Nippon, comes in small tubes from wilcos, squirt of that on tinfoil, and keep topping it up, they take it back to the nest to feed on, and it kills the nest. Its the best one i've come accross for getting rid of them, that and deodrant flamethrowers :D, or the industrial stuff we use here, but that stuff is leathal to anything living, its supposed to be for ants and other creepy crawlies (we use it after the ants nest that appeared in one of the machines last year) but it also has been found to kill mice and rats, and the occasional pigeon.

Joel

Have purchased Nippon from Wilko - got some of the white powder for outdoors [in case any are wandering outside in search of stuff for their wood pile etc !] and a pack of two ant traps [little round tubs in which you place a few drops of the Nippon ant killing liquid... kind of tempted to squirt the whole lot in there in one go rather than over 7 - 10 days though :P ]

I might come and take a few of the healthier, stronger ones off you.

I think ants are fascinating little critters. I bought an ant farm last year
http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/CategoryList.aspx?list=search&category=ant&language=en-GB
and mine have expired over a course of months, leaving empty a home of Nasa inspired blue gel for some new ants to come and tunnel in. They live in and feed off the gel and bring their dead to the top where they can be removed.

I always used to be fascinated watching them when they were uncovered in the garden at my last house and they all used to save the little white eggs (save the babies! save the babies!) then run off with them.

Don't have any in my garden here - its all snails - but that's a story for another day....


:D :D

ants absolutely amaze me. how they can carry so much and how they are so organised and busy. i could watch them for hours. sad i know but i just love it!!

hhhmmm wouldn't want them in my kitchen tho - hope you manage to sort it!

dammit MSB! now you've got me really tempted to buy one of those little ant farms!!

must... refrain... from... spending... money...

After just moving to Sothall I noticed a few days ago how many ants are in the garden. But there are some pebbles in the garden and I know that ants always hang out in pebbles.

But yesterday I did a bit of gardening then went back into the house, and on my way back out I noticed an ant tritt trotting as nice as you please across my work surface!!!!! Now until I read this thread I had convinced myself it was an isolated one that must have come into the house attached to me and fallen off......

How am I going to spend my Monday evening I wonder....

I like ants, are they all the UK ones vegetarian, or do we have killer varieties like in the Amazon ?

They have some leaf cutter ants at the butterfly house near Dronfield, I could watch them for hours.

I think we need pics.

Id love to see ants infesting your kitchen :)
________
THE CIGAR BOSS (http://thecigarboss.com/)

sorry to bring back on old thread but ive noticed lots of ants outside and a few inside new the front door what can i use outside the house to stop them getting in the house?

I had two ants' nests in my living room a few years ago. I put down Nipon ant killer in all the relevant places but, although the ants were definitely attracted to it, and some were dying, it wasn't doing the job. I ended up, as a complete last resort because I had a small child here, putting ant powder at the entrances to the nests, and that seemed to do the trick.

A few months later, I found loads of flying ants, as well as crawling ants, in one my bedrooms and, as I didn't have any ant powder left (I had used it up in the garden), I used talcum powder, which suffocates the ants. That worked straight away ~ I never saw another ant in that bedroom from that day.

What's ironic about this is that ants are in fact very clean creatures, but it's just not nice having them swarming all over your home, and getting into your food. Just the thought of finding an ant in someone's tea because it had got into the sugar bowl makes my skin crawl.

dammit MSB! now you've got me really tempted to buy one of those little ant farms!!

must... refrain... from... spending... money...

Can't you and rtapper just get together? :confused:

:)