Ants

[Gary.Jones]

Hope this the right place. Just visited a nice RV park a couple of weeks ago and while there, noticed that the coach was being invaded by group of extremely small ants. We stopped them from coming into the coach, and in a couple of day, headed on to a new location. We are now home and two weeks later, and the small ants are still walking around on the outside of our coach and I am sure inside.

What I did was buy a Spectracide product with a hose-end delivery mechanism. You screw it on a hose and get a wide stream of insecticide. I sprayed around the area of all the tires. I refrained from spraying on the rubber of the tires themselves. This was two weeks ago. Yesterday, when doing another issue with the coach, we again noticed the little ants running around on the outside of the coach with it parked in my driveway. Again, I sprayed with Spectracide and this time included the bottom parts of the rubber on the tires.

Never had this problem before. Any better idea how to prevent this in the future?

Gary

[WBandJ]

TERRO® Liquid Ant Baits
Will definitely kill any ants inside the coach.

[DoggieDaddy]

We got parked on an ant mound in Slidell, LA last November. Little brown ones. Thousands of them. Fought the same battle. Luckily the central vacuum system works rather well for sucking the critters up. Also put out some traps which they totally ignored. We weren't sure what they were after other than to just crawl around, they didn't seem to go after anything. We also did as you did and sprayed some Spectracide under the coach and around the wheels. That killed the ones on the ground and in the mound. But it took over two weeks of vacuuming everyday to get them out of the coach. Good luck.

[Statgeek]

Hopefully those aren't "crazy ants," as they have been known to invade electrical wiring here in Texas. I have started to spray around my coach (including rubber elec cord, tires, and the jacks) when I am in an area where I am suspicious of at problems. I also keep those round baits in several of my basement bays, but I don't know if they actually work or not. We had ants get in once and spent several trips killing them before we started this new regime.

[dave&ginny]

Originally Posted by WBandJ

TERRO® Liquid Ant Baits
Will definitely kill any ants inside the coach.

YEP X2. The ants will take the bate back to where ever they live within the coach and share the poison with the others. Within a few days....they're all dead.

[Boonedawg]

TERRO is the BEST keep it in the bus year round!

[DeeGee]

Terro is basically sugar, water and borax. The ants like the sugar and the borax kills them. You can mix up your own. IIRC Terro is about 2.5% borax; if you make it stronger, like about 5%, it works even better.

Note that some ants like sweets, some like fats, and some are attracted to proteins. Terro is obviously formulated to get the sweet-living ants, which are the most common.

[mel s]

Originally Posted by Statgeek

Hopefully those aren't "crazy ants," as they have been known to invade electrical wiring here in Texas. I have started to spray around my coach (including rubber elec cord, tires, and the jacks) when I am in an area where I am suspicious of at problems. I also keep those round baits in several of my basement bays, but I don't know if they actually work or not. We had ants get in once and spent several trips killing them before we started this new regime.

We picked up thousands of Argentine ants (aka: "crazy ants", "Raspberry ants"), in only a few hours at a COE campground at Sommerville Lake in TX, 2 winters ago:
See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn0uacvhgRY

And:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyLfSemVM3Y

YES...they ARE that BAD!
Torro and other poisons and sprays did not get rid of them.
We drove our coach home to Wisconsin in February and froze them to death.
Mel
'96 Safari

[Moonrover]

We picked them up at Sommerville Lake too. The little devils marched up the electric cord and into the utility bay. From there they were free to wander everywhere. I tried every trick to kill the hoard. Even thought I had the "final solution" with sticky fly paper stretched out in areas where they were moving about. Only a few got stuck, and the rest walked around my tape.

Just like you did, we returned to the north and froze them to death. Short of buying an ant eater for a pet, I have not heard of a good way to get rid of them when in the south.

[mel s]

Originally Posted by Moonrover

We picked them up at Sommerville Lake too. The little devils marched up the electric cord and into the utility bay. From there they were free to wander everywhere. I tried every trick to kill the hoard. Even thought I had the "final solution" with sticky fly paper stretched out in areas where they were moving about. Only a few got stuck, and the rest walked around my tape.
Just like you did, we returned to the north and froze them to death. Short of buying an ant eater for a pet, I have not heard of a good way to get rid of them when in the south.

Moonrover
I hear ya!
They got into nearly everything... (even some closed Tupperware containers, an unopened potato chip bag and my Norcold fridge)!
But NOT into the freezer compartment...(which gave me the idea to FREEZE THE WHOLE COACH to kill 'em all).
(I turns out Wisconsin winter weather is actually good for something after all).
Mel
'96 Safari

[gfs1943]

We got a bad invasion of pi$$ants in a state park in Georgia a couple of years ago. No matter where we moved after that, they stayed with us and invited their cousins from outside. I finally got to a Home Depot and bought a bag of Ortho fire ant killer -- the kind that's supposed to kill the mound within 12 hours -- and, at every stop, I sprinkled it liberally around every part of the coach that touched the ground (tires, jacks, electric & water connections). That stuff seems to work on all kinds of ants, not just fire ants. Combined with spraying inside every time we saw ants there, we finally got rid of them. Now I keep a bag of the fire ant granules in the coach, and spread it around wherever we stop. Haven't had another problem. Recently, I couldn't find Ortho so bought a bag of Spectracide to use on fire ant mounds here at home, and it seems to work just as well.

[336muffin]

Originally Posted by WBandJ

TERRO® Liquid Ant Baits
Will definitely kill any ants inside the coach.

I definately agree! NEVER let a limb (even a small one)touch the roof. A garlic clove in every bay and you will never be bothered with them again. This has worked for us for over four years. We change the garlic twice a year.

[Gary.Jones]

Mine were definitely the Raspberry Crazy ants, and we picked them up at the Oak Forrest RV park east of Austin TX. We saw them start the invasion and probably only had a few of the soldiers in the coach and carrying stuff back to the hill. Now that I watched the video above and read about them, it was definitely the crazies that we had. By traveling to Houston and then to Shreveport, and literally killing them by squishing them by hand as they ran along the side of the coach, we seem to have gotten the better of them. (We also sprayed with spectracide around the tires and under the coach and that probably helped too). People traveling to Texas and the Houston area might be wise to do a preventive spraying all around to try to get in front of the infestation.

Gary

[Ericlinde]

Originally Posted by Gary.Jones

Hope this the right place. Just visited a nice RV park a couple of weeks ago and while there, noticed that the coach was being invaded by group of extremely small ants. We stopped them from coming into the coach, and in a couple of day, headed on to a new location. We are now home and two weeks later, and the small ants are still walking around on the outside of our coach and I am sure inside.



What I did was buy a Spectracide product with a hose-end delivery mechanism. You screw it on a hose and get a wide stream of insecticide. I sprayed around the area of all the tires. I refrained from spraying on the rubber of the tires themselves. This was two weeks ago. Yesterday, when doing another issue with the coach, we again noticed the little ants running around on the outside of the coach with it parked in my driveway. Again, I sprayed with Spectracide and this time included the bottom parts of the rubber on the tires.



Never had this problem before. Any better idea how to prevent this in the future?



Gary

Gary: it is good to hear you didn't get washed away in the Texas rain storms. We are at Turning Stone Casino in Syracuse New York. We have taken a few short trips to shake down the coach. We have had our share of issues but seem to be through them now. I will send you some pictures of our damaged hydraulic cyclinder. Learning the new systems has been a great experience and we continue with it. Hope I am doing this right. Let me know TKPhi Eric


Sent from my iPad using iRV2 - RV Forum Eric Linde