Pest Control - Who/What do you use?

[Mrs. Ciz]

In the past, we’ve always done our own pest control. We’ve been in this house for 25 years, and the only problem we’ve had was the tiny black ants in the Spring and Summer time. I found that treating the exterior perimeter of the house with Amdro or Terro in the shaker bottle/bag kept the tiny ants out. If I forgot to do it, we’d get the tiny ants inside.

Unfortunately over the last 2 years, we’ve had a problem with big black carpenter ants. They’ve eaten away at the deck doorframe, and we’ve had a ton of them in the house. We tried everything to get rid of them on our own, including locating the colony under the house and using a special dust on them (given to us by a friend who used to own an extermination business). Nothing worked. In addition to the carpenter ants, the tiny black ants came back worse than ever. Terro would only get rid of them temporarily, and then they’d come back. I’d even find them crawling on me when I was sitting on the couch watching TV. Yuck. One evening recently a brown spider crawled across the back of my neck. Luckily it didn’t bit me! And then I found 2 Palmento bugs by the front door!

Enough was enough!!!!! We called in the experts. They did a perimeter blast all around the house and in the crawl space as well as put out bait traps for the carpenter ants. They’ll come back every other month for the next year. That was 2 weeks ago, and this week we are finding dead/dying carpenter ants, so it’s working! But dang! It costs a small fortune to get rid of these things!

Have you been successful getting rid of a carpenter ant infestation?

 

[kymom99]

Sounds like you are doing the right thing

 

[tvguy]

Have you been successful getting rid of a carpenter ant infestation?

We use a national pest control company and my neighbors all use different local pest companies and all I can say is, even with pest control after 40 years in this house, we still have "outbreaks" of ants. But at least the pest company will come out for free to spray. I had my back fence replaced 5 years ago, and the fencing guy found a HUGE ant nest in my neighbors backyard. I now make my pest company spray the back fence area.

 

[sasywtch]

We use a company called Official. I don't know if they are local or national. I think I pay $40 a month (paid for a year) and they come out 8 times a year. Like TVguy, when there is an outbreak of ants, I can call and they'll come out for "free". My yard people were doing my backyard and found a huge mound of ants so they put a lot of stuff out there. This year, the ants were teeny tiny. I also have them spray the yards for fleas/ticks as many people walk their dogs and they love to jump into our yard to do their business. I think it's because our dog goes out there three times a day so they like to do the smell test. We also have them put down rat poison in the back. Our neighborhood has creek rats YUK. They use my backyard for a running track as one neighbor has fruit trees and the other one has chickens with fruit trees. I have nothing they are looking for so they run through. We have a few neighborhood cats so my daughter planted cat nip by our back fence. It worked. The other night I was out front and one of the strays came up to my yard to the catnip, started slinking. Next thing I know, it was charging and I saw the little critter high tail it out of there away from the cat. One of those things everyone in the neighborhood knows but nobody tells you when buying. If they don't treat the inside, you may find after they spray outside the ants come in. We don't have them treat inside as I'm allergic and my daughter's medical so we buy those Torro gel things. It takes a week but they eventually take it to their leader and they don't come back.

 

[Stratman50th]

When we lived in MD we would get those tiny "sugar ants" every April or so. Had to bait them to get rid of them. Never had Palmetto bugs up there. They are actually American cockroaches and we have them here in Florida. It'll freak you out to see something as big as your thumb flying towards you. The small infestations people get in the kitchen are German cockroaches. As far as carpenter ants, you need to find the colony/colonies and take out the queens. Ours made their home in the landscaping timbers out in front of the house. It was crazy. They hollowed out the timbers and were living in there. The outside wasn't touched so we didn't know they were even there. When I picked one of the timbers up it fell apart like an eggshell.

We have a company come every other month here in Florida. The worse critters are the fire ants. They are mean and impossible to get rid of. I bait the hills when they pop up, but they just come back a little ways away. There's nothing that can be done about them yet. Maybe someday they'll come up with a way to kill them completely. They're invasive like just about everything else that takes hold here in Florida.

 

[mjkacmom]

We have a termite contract that was a couple thousand plus a monthly fee (we needed to get our house painted and we replaced our eaten front stairs with brick), and then we (I mean our town) had a rat issue and I wasn’t playing, I think it was only a few hundred plus a monthly fee, but it covers everything but termites so we are all good. Our house is over 100 years old, just like the rest of the homes in the neighborhood, it is what it is, it works.

 

[brockash]

In the past, we’ve always done our own pest control. We’ve been in this house for 25 years, and the only problem we’ve had was the tiny black ants in the Spring and Summer time. I found that treating the exterior perimeter of the house with Amdro or Terro in the shaker bottle/bag kept the tiny ants out. If I forgot to do it, we’d get the tiny ants inside.

Unfortunately over the last 2 years, we’ve had a problem with big black carpenter ants. They’ve eaten away at the deck doorframe, and we’ve had a ton of them in the house. We tried everything to get rid of them on our own, including locating the colony under the house and using a special dust on them (given to us by a friend who used to own an extermination business). Nothing worked. In addition to the carpenter ants, the tiny black ants came back worse than ever. Terro would only get rid of them temporarily, and then they’d come back. I’d even find them crawling on me when I was sitting on the couch watching TV. Yuck. One evening recently a brown spider crawled across the back of my neck. Luckily it didn’t bit me! And then I found 2 Palmento bugs by the front door!

Enough was enough!!!!! We called in the experts. They did a perimeter blast all around the house and in the crawl space as well as put out bait traps for the carpenter ants. They’ll come back every other month for the next year. That was 2 weeks ago, and this week we are finding dead/dying carpenter ants, so it’s working! But dang! It costs a small fortune to get rid of these things!

Have you been successful getting rid of a carpenter ant infestation?

No advice unfortunately, but can I ask where you live and how much the exterminator is costing you? We currently live in upstate NY, but heading to SC next summer and I am not a bug/rodent fan. Trying to figure out what we need to plan on to have as few as possible and also curious about cost.

 

[barkley]

we have carpenter ants on our property but it's 10 acres so it's impossible to locate every nest. that said-we used to use a local pest service but like so many they've sold out to a national company that comes out quarterly to treat for all manner of pests. we have them do the exterior of the entire house and only the interior of the garage and crawl space. this seems to have been effective enough to create a perimeter of defense against the carpenter ants and all other varieties of insects and rodents. now, i say quarterly but we actualy only tend to have them out 2-3 times per year b/c whatever they use in the spring tends to work well through the summer months and after they've done the fall (i need to schedule in the next few weeks) has to see us through the winter b/c there is just too much snow on the ground in the winter months for them to treat.