ants

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vic33004

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my boat has been invaded by ants this year. i've tried ant bait, fogging, raid and a few others. all seem to help but after about a week or so they come back with even more friends just to make a point. i dont have open food or debris laying around. the only thing they can find is bildge or rain water.

anyone have a treatment other than more raid?
 
Terro. It's a liquid with the consistency of glue. Ants swarm on it and take the poison back to the farm.

Terro(dot)com.

I have had ant problems in the house on and off for several years. It's the only thing that works. A tad expensive, but one bottle will last forever.
 
Funny you mention this. I just started having this issue two weeks ago. Never before have I had an issue but right now I've cleaned the deck twice and they still have come back. This last time I even resorted to pulling all the carpet, seats, and storage areas apart to clean them down. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.
 
Had ants at home and on the boat at one time or another.

Tried Terro. Waited days for them to take the crap back to the colony. . . .worthless.

Tried Boric Acid . . . again waited days for them to return the stuff to the colony. . . .no luck.

Someone suggested putting a pop bottle cap of sugar in the middle of an aluminum pan filled with water. They would drown attempting get to the sugar. . . . didn't work either.

Sprayed RAID ant and bug killer on all their trails & on the ants. . . .killed them dead in their tracks. Had a couple or visitors on scouting missions looking for their ant buddies days later, a little more RAID did the trick.
 
Around here we use a Fire Ant killer from Lowes. It's a dirty nasty looking powder, but a whole ant hill is gone in three days.
 
Home Defense from Walmart. I also spray around all rooms in the house 4 times a year for cock roaches.

Doe's not stain or smell.
 
My boat & trailer had ants. And we could not get rid of them. Learned something interesting though.
Ants can go months without food but only days without water.

I put my boat in the trailer iin my shop last fall, on angle so all water dripped out. Then I sprayed the trailer, the trailer jack, the tires and under the boat with some type if ant killer. The ants came out looking for water in about 3 days. Started seeing maybe 20 ants dead on the floor the first week then by the second week maybe 400. The shop had absolutely no water in it or any source except the bathroom maybe 50 ft away.

I was sweeping and vacuuming ants of the floor in the shop and in the boat. All dead. Have not seen a single amt since.

Most of the chemicals used are dehydrating agents. They get into the ants system and they can't retain water. I elimated all the water and let them drink ant killer only. It worked. Took 2 summers to figure out the no water cure, which is dam hard when your boat is in it!
 
the tiny black ants re called "white footed ants"

google it, they're tough to get rid or.

We are just wrapping up dealing with them in the house & boat

They 're all over the neighborhood too !

tied a rag to the power cord. soaked in liquid poison.

terro on board & boric acid powder.

It takes a while but over time this combination works.

RWS
 
I've had problems with them off and on at home. If there's a long trail, I hit it with Dawn and water in a spray bottle. They disintegrate on contact. (Who knew???) If I have more time, I suck the little buggers up in the shopvac, hit the point of ingress with a short spritz of Raid and then put the shopvac nozzle where I sprayed the Raid to kill the ones in the shopvac. The fumes will take care of the ones in the canister. (Dustbuster works, too)

Raid smells like hell,and I couldn't imagine using it inside a boat. Dawn just turns them to mush and you can wipe them up with a paper towel. (That little tip is the only thing of value my ex left me...other than my stepkids!)
 
Im always under the impression that you need to treat the source, not just the after-effect.

We had ants on the boat this year, first time ever. Put ant traps out. Controlled them slightly, but they were still running around, and if anybody is going to be on the boat 24 hours a day enjoying it, its going to be me and not some stupid ants...lol.

Found out that my back yard/seawall had a small infestation. Laid out some Sevin granules and sprayed the seawall, docklines, and fenders with home defense insect killer.

Havent had a problem since.
 
quote:
Originally posted by KiDa

Terro. It's a liquid with the consistency of glue. Ants swarm on it and take the poison back to the farm.

Terro(dot)com.

I have had ant problems in the house on and off for several years. It's the only thing that works. A tad expensive, but one bottle will last forever.

Click to expand...


Ditto on the Terro.
 
Keep the boat on a mooring. Ants can't swim. Boric acid mixed with a bit of sugar to attract them. To debug our 5th wheel trailer for storage we use mothballs & dryer sheets inside. If trailer is inside sprinkle comet on the floor around the wheels. Being very clean & no food onboard helps too.
 
For me, the boric acid/cotton balls as seen in the video CurrentSea posted works. There use to be trails into the kitchen. Never even saw many ants eating the stuff. It's just that, after a couple days, no more ants and they haven't come back.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Veebyes

Keep the boat on a mooring. Ants can't swim. Boric acid mixed with a bit of sugar to attract them. To debug our 5th wheel trailer for storage we use mothballs & dryer sheets inside. If trailer is inside sprinkle comet on the floor around the wheels. Being very clean & no food onboard helps too.

Click to expand...


Ants don't need to swim, they will reproduce in your boat all summer long.
 
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