hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

What is it with this horrible little ants?

Theres 2 things I really dont like ...one is wasps (not many here luckily) and the other being ants... not sure where my hatred for them comes from! :)

When we moved into this house last winter I moved some stuff into the bedroom and that day there was a trail of hundreds of little black ants all round the room and going into the cupboard.... the sheer volume of them made my skin crawl! We put down No Ants but it didnt work very fast and I wouldnt sleep in that room for a few days. Finally I hoovered all of them up as they just wouldnt go.

During the summer they kinda disappeared and now they are back with a vengeance!! They are in the bathroom... all over the bath everyday.... on the floor.... and they love climbing all over the toothbrushes!

They are in the hallway but I can handle that.

What I cant handle is that they are literally all over the kitchen. This morning they were in all the cupboards.... in the dishwasher!! They are walking around all over the walls and surfaces. I boiled the kettle at brekky time and the water was filled with loads of little black boiled bodies!! LOL.... yuck yuck yuck... cant even make a cup of tea without the bloody things being in it!! Stupid things moving into the kettle!!! I got the grill tray out of the oven to make littlun some muffins at lunchtime and within minutes there were hundreds swarming all over it (it was clean)... where do they come from??

They must be living in the walls of this house as theres no way they can move that fast.

Im a houseproud person and keep everything clean and tidy but honestly they p me off.... DS is 2 and one little sticky handprint and the kitchen is full of ants!!

Its not quite a phobia but I really dont like them... I know these dont bite but even as Im sitting on the settee I notice them walking over me. I guess they dont like the wet weather also and have come to join me inside.

Am I the only person with a house full of ants?

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Yeah we had them while in NZ - for some reason they were attacted to the kettle, there were thousands of them living in it so we ended up taking it back to the shop as faulty!

Anyway get a pest controller, they should be able to find the nest and take the buggers out!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Crikey no! Have had a reasonable amount but mainly in the garden. Have you had your house sprayed? We were going to get it done but instead got two of those Robo Cans from Placemakers. We keep one in the kitchen and one in the hallway and we hardly get any insects at all, even in the summer. The stuff is organic and harmless to children and pets (not sure about fish)

With that many it might be a good idea to get it sprayed and then keep a Robocan going. My friend had his three bedroom house sprayed in the summer and it cost him about $50 but then you have to stay out for a while and vacuum when you get in as he said there were insects all over the floor :eek:

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

I hate the little feckers also.
In our last house we had them everywhere just like you described. SOunds like you have an ant hill/nest closeby. We got some pest control company spray inside and out and it did nothing, we got them back and still nothing. I remember waking up one morning and the whole kitchen was black it was amazing to see so many of the feckers almost as bad as cockroaches another hate of mine.
We ended getting a lady from Beachlands called Rose come out and spray , her Husband Robin used to have Beachlands water, we never had them come back after Rose sprayed the whole house, not sure what she used but it worked. Ask your OH to ask Rob the Fire Chief man if he knows their ph # as I can't think of it at the moment.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Hiya... thanks for the replies. Not so many about this morning and non in the kettle (I checked before boiling!).

We are hopefully moving out of this rental in a few weeks time so very loathe to spend any money on it. We already have one broken pane of glass to get fixed (2 year old terror let it slam in the wind) and thats a payment we could have done without at the moment.

Thanks for the contact name annaerb... I will keep that one on file in case the new house has ant problems.... I really hope not. I just hate it when theres more than just a few.... they kinda make my skin crawl.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

We have ant bait down all over the place and theres not so many ants around in my kitchen this week... :)

Monday night my OH was out so I put our son to bed.... he said "ants mummy" and showed me one on his finger. I brushed it off and we went into his bedroom.... he said "ants" again and pointed to his chest.... he was literally crawling with ants!! He had been in the hallway where there were loads of ants on the hall table and for some reason they were all over him! I brushed them all off him.... he seemed very pleased with himself that he was covered in ants!! lol... what a strange boy... fancy taking all those ants to bed.... oh yuck.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

When are you moving out Sarah cos that sounds horrible. Little boys are funny aren't they but I would freak out if there were ants in my childrens beds.
Thank godness they don't bite, I was once bitten by one in the UK and it hurt like hell for days and days ... I don't think it actually bit me, I think they squirt a kind of acid on your skin as they are squeazing it with their really powerful jaws. Least that's what a mate told me, I squished it anyways for causing me pain.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Yes youre right the ants in UK have a pretty good bite on them! These are tiny little ants and Ive been told they dont bite. I've taught my DS not to be scared of animals but he seemed so pleased to be covered in ants I'll have to rethink what I teach him! (Of course I tell him to be cautious of dogs he doesnt know and to ask permission from owners before touching them).

Not sure when we are moving out yet.... still havnt had any news from the UK re. my house sale, expected completion date is 14th July though and I've already signed the contracts and Transfer Deeds and sent them back ages ago... I expect I'll hear something soon. We hope to move out before the end of August.

I found out this week that the house we rent is being advertised for rent by Lighthouse and we havnt even given a date that we'll move out yet. We rent though Barfoot & Thompson and they knew nothing about Lighthouse taking over the management. How can they possibly show people round this house and then say they dont know when its gonna be available to them.... seems a bit illogical to me.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Sarah, get yourself a robocan and have that on ethe wall. They disappear like no one's business. It's great. :)

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

hey we were shown around a house to rent that the landlord hadn't even brought yet!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

lol how mad is that!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

yes & funnily enough we didn't rent it & he still hasn't brought it!!!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Where was he bringing it from?

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

ha ha :)

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

LOL..... somebody has put a For Sale sign outside our house today by mistake and loads of people have driven past slowly for a good butchers at it. Its really for the house round the corner but the arrows on it point to our house.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

On the last few mornings I've noticed the odd cockroach crawl out from the dishwasher when I open it first thing - aarrgghh!! I'm v.spooked out!
I've never noticed them before - we live in a newish clean apartment building.
Any tips??? have never had to deal with them before, and guess its a case of wehre theres one theres a large extended family....
Am guessing they're in the dishwasher overnight for warmth and darkness??
Thanks in advance! :)

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Bet you are near the coast?
try robocan. It's been great for us. everything beats a hasty retreat.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Great thanks will get one, yes we're in Auckland....

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

If we are talking "little visitors"...we had only been in our new rental a couple of weeks when we were aware of strange scraping noises coming from the loft.To be honest I thought it was birds,then a couple of days later the kids (who sleep in cabin beds with there noses practically touching the ceiling) came running through to our bed in the middle of the night because they too could hear scraping and thumping noises moving around above them!! My OH went into the loft, to discover 2 RAT NESTS!!!! When we phoned up the rental agency they told us that it is common this time of year, and the local council gives out free rat bait.(He told us that he had them too!)
I can honestly say I did not sleep a wink for the next week, whilst I imagined these rats sniffing around in the space above us, and praying that they would take the bait.
They have gone now, yet another learning experience during our first year.........(that I would rather have done without.)

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Oh yuck... poor you. A few years ago back in the UK we had a rat in our loft and we managed to catch it in a big old rat trap.... the trap didnt kill it outright as it was supposed to. We carried the trap out into the back garden and my cat thought it was brave and went sniffing round the trap with the trapped rat in it and then the rat squeaked and she shot back into the house like her tail was on fire. My ex-hub had to dispose of the poor old rat. I remember when I first heard something in the loft above me my hub didnt believe it could be a rat... he thought it was a mouse but when he went up there he found giant sized poos everywhere.

I spoke way too soon that the ants are gone. They are back with a vengeance. They are literally all over the kitchen and playroom/living area. I have scrubbed everything and make sure no food is left out but they are everywhere. We have loads of bait down but theres just so many ants. Even if I sit down on the settee and watch tv I am just flicking ants off myself and my clothes. The landlord sent round a building inspector/architect type person today for some unknown reason and I mentioned the ants to him and he just said.... yeah our kitchen at home is full of ants too.... thats just usual. Is it??? I dont know anybody else with this ant problem.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Blimey Sarah, sounds grim up North.
We've had a few trails of ants in the kitchen but nothing on a biblical scale like you. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Hi Sarah,

We also had a problem with ants in our other house. I sprayed around where they were crawling with Raid and that sorted them out fine. Then again we had nothing like as bad as the problem you have. Good luck with getting rid of them, I can't stand insects or spiders!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Thanks. I hope our new house doesnt have an ant problem!

They are all over the kitchen again today. My OH came home tonight and said to me "do you want to see how many ants there are between the units and the dishwasher?".... I just said...... ermmm.... Nope. :) He told me there are hundreds there and hes put down loads more bait.... hopefully it will start to work soon.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Our house was inundated with ants when we 1st moved in too - and you could smell them too - a kind of musky smell.
A lot of them seemed to swarm out of the lights switches so we took them off, and put ant powder in which helped a bit. We also had to replace a rotten window sill and found thousands of them in there - it was orrible.

We don't get many now and I've found that a quick squirt with fly spray sorts them out & we don't get any back in the sprayed area.

We've had rats in the loft too - the joys of living in the bush ! It's amazing how much noise they make. When we started hearing them in the walls ( creepy ) we realised it was time to call in the experts as the stuff we bought at Mitre10 obviously wasn't working.
He said that D.I.Y places aren't alowed to sell the really strong stuff. The stuff he put down worked within a day and we haven't had any back... yet...

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Sarah,

Try finding out Rose's number and see if she still does spraying. Honestly we had them so bad in our last House , we tried everything and spent hundreds of dollars getting the little feckers to die that nothing worked. I was told about Rose and got her around and I never had another ant. I think the House was built on an Ant nest.

I've seen the odd Cocroach here but nothing as bad as when we lived in Indonesia where they even crawled into your fridge/oven you name it they were there, we also had these huge Rhinosaurus beetles that were disgusting.


Sarah, Get your new house done before you move in.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Ants - this always catches me by surprise when I'm back in NZ too.
Some years are definitely worse than others...
I've found that the tiny ants tend to come in from outside, so follow the trail and spray antkiller around the doors and windows or other cracks (inside and outside the house) they are using, and repeat every now and then. The number of ants inside the house usually drops dramatically.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

We've had tonnes of ants too - mostly in the hotter weather but saw another trail the other day - little b*ggers!!

We found only one thing worked and that was from Bunnings in a big green bottle called Home Defender. You basically spray it around the perimeter of the house and it works a treat. You have to spray regularly, so I go on a daily ant hunt armed with the stuff. Also worth checking is that you don't have any overhanging trees and bushes as ours starting climbing up the trees and onto the roof. Cunning...

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

It was my landlord who gave me the tip about Raid, he said using the ant bait just attracts more into the house but the Raid gets either kills them straight off or puts them off the scent. We had them in the kitchen, kid's bedroom and the bathroom. God knows where they were getting in but there were so many holes in that place anything could've got in.

I've not seen many spiders yet, just a few spindly daddylonglegs and some tiny little jumping things (not fleas I hope) but I've heard about these whitetail spiders and would freak out if I ever ound one.

Sand flies though......we've been bitten rotten on the beach and in the garden too. They're little black flies with a really mean streak and the bites itch like hell. You'd think this cold weather would've killed off the little bleeders.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Can you not buy something to put on that will stop the little bleeders biting :scared:
mossies and sand flies are my worst nightmare, i react bad to them, spoilt quite a lot of my holidays abroard.
jane

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

I hate getting bitten by sandflies. They are in our garden and on the beach, specially when the tide is on its way out... I've reacted a bit odd to a couple of their bites.... looked like I had massive love-bites on my body! They dont seem to like biting through sun-screen so I plaster my legs with that.... not had a single bite through sun-screen.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Our first day in this rental and I was pegging out the clothes,when I saw something move in the peg basket...there was this spider, I called my OH and we looked it up on the internet....yup, sure enough it was a white tail !!
Sounds like a grim picture in this rental...rats and white tail spiders...!!
I got a tip on this site to use Vit B suppliments, or eat marmite, to stop the sand flies biting, I hate marmite, so I take the supplements, and I have noticed that I am not bitten(as much)
Hope you get the ants sorted.....we don't have ants thank goodness, I think the rats and spiders frighten them off!!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

LOL.... oh you poor thing! Our ants are still around everyday but not in the same numbers as before. They come out of hiding so damn quick.... I only have to say leave a used plate in the kitchen and leave it there for 5 mins and theres ants all over it.

I think I've seen some white tails but I'm not really sure if they were or not. They had white markings on their bums so I assumed they were?! :confused:

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Sarah, the Robocan is great and you can take that with you to your new place. it stops the moths coming in at night too. We had loads of moths in our pantry - it was horrible - every evening I'd open the doors and they were all over the undersides of the shelves :scared: It really freaked me out and then we realised that the robocan had run out so bought a new one and they were all gone in a week. We don't get any insects at all in the house when we've got that.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Today sees the return of the kitchen ants with a vengeance. Bl00dy things!!

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Bloody hell not again!! Poor you

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

They seem to be in the kitchen more in wet weather and certainly had plenty of that lately. Also, because I have had flu pretty bad last night I left a couple of things to wash up in the sink coz I just couldnt be @rsed.... silly me..... my fault really. OH is gonna put some more bait down as we have plenty and it worked last time.... we move out in 2 weeks and 3 days anyway... not that Im counting... :D

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Sarah, Batty is right, get yourself a robocan!!!!!
When we moved a month ago we had a lovely clean kitchen and within days it was covered in ants but we put a fresh can in and haven't had any since. Also we get horrible roach things that come in from the garden and within 3/4 minutes of them getting in the kitchen they are on the floor on their backs with legs wiggling about. Also good for mozzies, spiders etc...

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Thanks, I will definately put one on my shopping list. Its not like our kitchen is on the ground floor either.... we have an upside down house with bedrooms downstairs and living/kitchen etc upstairs. I think they must be living in the walls and if I even leave a crumb out or littlun leaves a sticky fingerprint somewhere then within minutes they are there. I normally shop at PacNSave.... do they sell them there? Theres no other creepy crawlies in the house.... just these ants.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

I think they do something simular, but check the contents as with the robocan brand, the ingredient that actually kills things, is natural and harmless to infants and pets, but I'm not sure about other makes. Hope that made sense! It's just I know you have the toddler plus one on the way and if you want it postitioned in the kitchen in your new house you will need the unharmful one.

Re: hehe... a moan.....too many ants!
 

Youre right.... my OH flips his lid if he thinks theres anything in the house that might harm us or littlun anyway.... hes right to worry too. We've never seen as many air fresheners of every shape and size as they make in this country... and they advertise them on TV a lot too.... surely too much of that stuff is bad for you.