Getting the ANTs out of my RV !!!!!!!!

[Geo19Irv]

I parked in Florida for the winter and somehow the ants have gotten in. HOW do I get rid of them and keep them out ???????????????
HELP

[Jim_HiTek]

Use corn starch and baking soda. Sprinkle around each tire, and around each cord or hose. And around the sewer slinky if it's out permanently (I put mine away after use to eliminate that trail). The ants can't stand to walk on the stuff. ALSO, get a package of Irish Spring soap and cut the bars into 1/4" thick slices and place them on top of the tires and here and there in your basement compartments. Lots of critters hate the smell of Irish Spring. Including ants.

Inside, ruin their trail with bleach, followed by sprinkling with baking soda. This may take a while and several treatments.

[MingusPirate]

Usually they don't nest into your RV, only come in forage and take back to their colony. So more than likely your move will kill the remaining workers. I had a similar problem in NOCAL and that worked. Just a lot of trail cleanup and throwing away what they entered.

[powderman]

I had good luck using twenty mule team borax. It has the same ingredient as Terro. they gotta into my ceiling and I drilled a small hole inside of a closet and used a turkey baster to spray it into the area. Couple days and they were gone. What ever you have left can be used to wash clothes.

[hippopapamus]

For long trips and storage I would sprinkle Ajax around all tires / possible entry points. I also used to routinely place / replace ant-bait traps and dog flea collars in storage places and little nooks and crannies.

[Rockwood27]

When I get to Florida for the winter, I use Terro ant killer. A couple of packets on the counter where the ants travel and they're gone in 3-4 days. You can get at Walmart, hardware stores, etc.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/17165156

[US1]

X2 on Terra. Tried all the other ant killers and remedies with zero results when we 1st bought the RV. Spent a couple weeks wiping up ants as we saw them crawling around on the walls and floor.
Got Terra from Menards and ants were gone within 2 days, never a single ant to be seen since.
I bought the bottle that you place a few drops on cardboard and set around on the floor and counters where you see activity, and also the Terra liquid traps. Both worked great. Tried the Terra sticky pads with no luck. Dont be tempted to clean up the live ants as they eat the Terra products. You have to let them take it back to their colony to kill the others. Ive never used a product that works as good as advertised as what Terra does.
Several months ago we had an unusual amount of rain all week long at home soaking the ground. In the 30 yrs we've lived here, never had an ant in the house. But with all the rain, we got quit a few that got inside around our kitchen window. Placed a few drops of Terra on the window sill, within an hr i would guess 30-50 ants came out of the wall and gathered around and consumed the Terra drops. Never saw an ant again after that night.

[Argosy]

I'll second Terro. There were 2 colonies in my motor home when I got it. One under the tile in the bathroom, they got out thru a tiny hole in the grout. The second was behind/in the kitchen wall, they went behind the back splash. I got the liquid bait stations, the ants were gone in a day or so. It's one of the things in life that works the way you want it to.

[US1]

Originally Posted by US1

X2 on Terra. Tried all the other ant killers and remedies with zero results when we 1st bought the RV. Spent a couple weeks wiping up ants as we saw them crawling around on the walls and floor.
Got Terra from Menards and ants were gone within 2 days, never a single ant to be seen since.
I bought the bottle that you place a few drops on cardboard and set around on the floor and counters where you see activity, and also the Terra liquid traps. Both worked great. Tried the Terra sticky pads with no luck. Dont be tempted to clean up the live ants as they eat the Terra products. You have to let them take it back to their colony to kill the others. Ive never used a product that works as good as advertised as what Terra does.
Several months ago we had an unusual amount of rain all week long at home soaking the ground. In the 30 yrs we've lived here, never had an ant in the house. But with all the rain, we got quit a few that got inside around our kitchen window. Placed a few drops of Terra on the window sill, within an hr i would guess 30-50 ants came out of the wall and gathered around and consumed the Terra drops. Never saw an ant again after that night.

Terro, not Terra.

[gatorb8]

Terro, always keep it on hand! Seems the ants go onto hibernation sometimes and when I start up to drive they wake up! Dab some Terro around, hundreds come out then in a few days they magically disappear.

[astrnmrtom]

After our arrival in Florida, I had a nearby nest of Fire Ants decide my front storage compartment would be a great spot for a satellite nest. Even watched them moving grubs into the compartment.

You may have to end up trying a few different types/brand of bait. Depending on the nest's life cycle, they can be attracted to protein or sweets or may not take the bait at all. In my case the ants were nest building not foraging, so they wouldn't take any bait. Out came the Ortho Home Defense spray. It's virtually odor fee, provides a quick kill, and has some residual action. READ THE LABEL! Having residual action means you must be more careful around pets even though it's a low toxicity pesticide.

This was my first exposure to Fire Ants. We don't have them where I'm from. I mis-identified them after looking at a dead body with my bug loupe. Was sure it was a pavement ant, a species I've killed tens of thousands of at work. I discovered my error the hard way, when a few days later in the dark, I picked up an item I'd had on the ground since arriving, and within a few seconds felt the stings on my hand. Turned on the light to see my hand covered in the little stinkers. They had set-up another small satellite nest in the thing I had picked up. All of them died too. As a ex pest control guy, I carry two pest control kits - one for ants, another for mice.

So beware. Fire ants are common in Florida. They love nesting at the bases of trees and shrubs, and under pavement. You'll see the sand piles excavated from their tunnels.

Fire and Fun Fact: They have an interesting attack tactic. They delay their attack until a certain number of ants have amassed on the victim, then they start stinging. Stepping on a nest is a great way to get them to attack. Yeah, that was the SECOND time I got nailed. Didn't see their nest hidden in the grass.

I tell everyone my Fire Ant encounter was revenge for all the nests I killed back home over the years - that they have a tiny picture of me in all their ant post offices.

Thank goodness the species I was attacked by were small ones.

A tip for using baits is to follow the trail and look for any ants that are carrying anything. That will tell you which direction the nest is. See if you place the bait close to where they are coming in, because if they take the bait, word will get out and the numbers may INCREASE until the nest dies off which can take several days.

My advice is always bait first, and only spray of the bait doesn't work. If they've already set-up a nest in a hidden spot in your rig, and you only spray what you see, they can pop up somewhere else and you can end up playing whack-a-mole. Before I spray, I take the time to watch and track them back to the nest or entry point. Walk the outside of your rig and look for scouts or a trail. If you find one, place the bait outside as close to the place where they are entering.

Once you've killed the nest or stopped them from coming in, clean the area with some some all purpose cleaner. Ants put down a pheromone trail for other to follow so washing up will remove the trail.

You can get some tape such as duct tape, turn a strip inside out and wrap it tightly around your power cord to stop them from using it as a highway. Same with your water hose. Make sure it's tight enough so they can't just walk underneath.

If you want a pet safe barrier treatment pick up some diatomaceous earth and make a ring around your jacks, tires and other things that connect your rig to the ground. To an ant it's like walking on broken glass. Powdered borax will work because it's the active ingredient in many ant baits, but it isn't weather proof. Diatomaceous earth is weather resistant and non toxic. You can also pick up some Ant/Roach powder in a bottle with a dispenser tip and you can use this instead of diatomaceous earth. I must add though, I've never been a big fan of campers pouring any pesticides on someone else's property without their permission. In my state it is illegal, plus after you move on, the stuff remains behind and may be an issue for future campers pets or kids. That's why I recommend diatomaceous earth - it's inert, and is used as a soil amendment.

If you are lucky, and it's early in their nest building, or they are just foraging, they should be fairly easy to control. If they set-up a robust nest in a difficult to access place, it could be more challenging.

One final thing. If you see a lot of activity in your site, tell someone at the park and they may treat the area.

[groveln]

I've found the Terro Liquid bait/poison works great on those Florida sugar ants as well as dealing with those little suckers in Wisconsin.

[TandW]

Keep in mind y'all that ants don't nest without a water source close by.

[astrnmrtom]

Originally Posted by TandW

Keep in mind y'all that ants don't nest without a water source close by.

That's why a lot of ant baits are a liquid as it supplies water that they need.

Ant fun fact: Adult ants don't eat solids, they feed exclusively on liquids.

The stuff they collect are fed to the grubs, who then secrete a fluid that the adults feed on in return. Returning foragers also regurgitate a liquid from their crop to feed other adults that stay in the nest. Liquid food is why you'll see ants protecting and tending aphids. They actually "milk" the aphids by stroking them for the sticky honey-dew (liquid poop) they excrete. Ant fast food. Baits like Terro are one as is Combat Maxx ant bait gel. The ants I dealt with LOVED Combat Maxx bait gel and I'd see dramatic results in 24 hours. They'd take the Terro, but it wasn't as effective - your ants may be different so use what works for you.

Liquid ant baits mimic these fluids, and the key to a good bait is to let the adult live long enough to be able to feed the pesticide to the grub and other workers, and eventually the queen(s) which also die. It's why it can take some time for the nest to die. If you just kill the foragers, the queen will keep cranking out more - 100s a day per queen! In some circumstances spraying close to the nest can kick off a survival technique where the nest fractures, sending multiple queens, workers, and grubs/eggs off in various directions, each fractured group now becoming a new nest. Instead of fighting one nest, you are now fighting several. I'd occasionally run into this at work where I'd arrive to treat for the ants and the person in the room would tell me: "Don't worry, I brought some spray from home and hosed them, problem solved." Some time later, I'd get the call that they were back more numerous than ever. Problem made worse.

Beware of home remedies. One common one with ants is feeding them corn meal which supposedly will kill them because they eat it, but can't digest it, and it kills them. Some versions say it makes them explode. Problem is the above liquids-only fact. Often these remedies are repeated over and over and people think they work because other people have said so. Not to pick specifically on a another poster, but the Irish Spring soap suggestion is one of those things that gets repeated over and over especially for mice, but unfortunately people are unaware of the fact the main ingredient in bar soap is fat. Fat is a food for many pests. If they have an alternative, they may not eat the soap, but if they are really hungry, or there's a high pest pressure - i.e. lots of competition for resources, your rumored repellant becomes a food source - not what you want. Another assumption people make is something that's viewed as "natural" is inherently safer than some chemical made in a lab. The error here is; chemistry is chemistry, whether made by nature or in a lab. Nature makes some nasty toxins. In our classes, Inspectors had plenty of stories of household products ending up causing emergency room visits for the user, and many were more hazardous than a pesticide specifically designed for the pest they were trying to eliminate. Sprinkling borax powder on the ground can be an issue to pets who may ingest it, either by eating it or getting it on their fur then licking it later. Same if they inhale the powder. Remember, it's not just your pet you worry about, it's the pet of future site's occupants too. Right now I'm camped across for a family with a young boy about 3 years old and he's frequently playing in the dirt with his toy trucks next to their rig. There's no way the family would know if their kid was playing in dirt that a previous occupant sprinkled with something hazardous. In pest control I ALWAYS had to consider the chances of accidental exposure and take the appropriate measures to prevent it, especially since the public frequented our facilities. Please consider what you leave behind.

If you are worried about pets and kids, read the label. The warning section will list cautions. Most pesticides labels are required to have a clearly visible signal word which is a quick guide to it's toxicity. "Caution" is the least Toxic "Danger" or "Poison", the most toxic. Some are exempt because they've been found to have extremely low toxicity and may not have a signal word. ALL EPA registered pesticides are tested and rated by their toxicity known as their LD-50 rating. Stuff that isn't a registered pesticide, i.e. home remedy, has NOT been tested for that use, and may pose a hazard if used as one.

Ok, pest guy lecture over. Now go get those ants!