NBR- need suggestions

Charmed181

So I was vacuuming my living room just now, and found a few puffs my DS2 must have dropped behind a chair earlier. Could not have been there longer than 8 hours- we didn't come down here until 11 this morning, and it was vacuumed last night as always. They were covered in ants. With a long trail of ants leading to and away from it. On my living room carpet. After a mini freak out iinvolving lots of shreiking, a call to DH at work, and teaching my 4 year old a few new explitives, I vacuumed up the offenders, but I know that's not all its going to take. Now I have a serious case of the willies. HALP ME!! How do you get rid of ants??? 

lynn97

Look for water as they are usually drawn to it. It sounds like this is in your living room though? I would probably just call an exterminator if you're that flipped out but, honestly, I wouldn't worry that much about ants. They can get in via really teeny spots. I don't like the chemicals of pesticides so that would concern me more than the ants themselves. Also, can you just make your kids keep food in the kitchen/dining room? We don't let DS take food out of there and I don't plan to start letting him anytime soon.

amongthestarz

Plain ol' ant cups from the supermarket work pretty well. Best to find where they are getting in though. If they are coming in from outside, you can spray the pesticides there instead of in your living room.

Rachey1082

I'm on my phone, so it's not clicky.

https://smallnotebook.org/2010/04/21/5simplenaturalantcontrolremedies/

You can do a variety of things that won't hurt your kids. GL

AmeliaKris

Have DH spray outside perimeter of house with ant sheild. Put the ant cups down on the inside. If you. Have slider doors with a deck you can draw a line of chalk on deck by the door.ants wont cross chalk. Pinterest has lots of ant killing ideas. We got them by the cats water bowl. If you have pets, also check there too. Good luck.

Charmed181

lynn97:

Look for water as they are usually drawn to it. It sounds like this is in your living room though? I would probably just call an exterminator if you're that flipped out but, honestly, I wouldn't worry that much about ants. They can get in via really teeny spots. I don't like the chemicals of pesticides so that would concern me more than the ants themselves. Also, can you just make your kids keep food in the kitchen/dining room? We don't let DS take food out of there and I don't plan to start letting him anytime soon.

He eats in the high chair in the dining room but it's adjacent to the living room. He throws food 10 months old. I'm sure that's how it got in here, it's maybe 4 feet from where his high chair sits. I think the ants are coming in through the fireplace.

Charmed181

Thanks all I found something saying cinnamon kills them too... I'll start there and have DH pick up other stuff on his way home.

suv75

Terro ant baits!

lynn97

Charmed181:

Thanks all I found something saying cinnamon kills them too... I'll start there and have DH pick up other stuff on his way home.

Cinnamon didn't work for me this summer but I recall what did. I put sugar water maybe a T of sugar in about a cup of warm water and mixed it up until it was dissolved. Then I added Borax. I don't recall how much I added. Anyway, this took care of mine. Maybe you could put it in your fireplace and close the doors? As I said, they are drawn to water and they like sweet so they drink the water and get poisoned. They also somehow take it back to other ants maybe they regurgitate the solution?? so it is supposed to kill them all. I forgot I had done this last summer and it worked great when nothing else was, even the little ant traps. Borax is poisonous to kids though, so keep it somewhere that they can't get it. Good luck!