[Groop] Ants!!!!!

[Alexander Durnan]

Well, I see your point, Philippe,  but it really does work.  I've been in 
this house for 18 years now, and for the first 12 or so years we had an ant 
invasion/infestation in the kitchen regularly.  In the warmer months they 
were strongest.  They seemed to love the dishwasher in particular, and were 
always found on the kitchen counters, sinks, floor, walls, cat food, etc. 
Now I'm a bit of an environmentalist, so I tried everything  short of 
insecticides to get rid of them. I even used insecticidal baits on the 
outside and inside, all with very limited results.   Generally I will live 
harmoniously with them, so long as they stay outside.  My father (who owned 
the place until he died) who is by no means an environmentalist, called 
professional exterminators several times and sprayed countless bottles of 
poison around himself, also without success.  I searched the internet and 
other sources high and low, tried all kinds of crazy tricks, from feeding 
them coffee grounds to drawing chalk borders (which supposedly they will not 
cross - but they did).  Finally we found Terro.  Pour a nickel sized drop on 
a small piece of cardboard and place it near their trails.  Within a few 
minutes they are all gathered around the drop lapping it up like cows at a 
trough.  Replace the drop as they use it up.  After a few days- no ants. 
Amazing.  Now its true that you can never kill them all this way, you just 
put the colony out of commission for awhile.  It either rebuilds with a new 
queen or another colony replaces it.  So there have been periodic 
recurrences (which is why I used it many times).  These recurrences happen 
no more than twice a year, but never on the scale on which they once 
happened.  So I get the Terro out again, and poof!, the ants are gone again. 
I still see an odd ant in the kitchen from time to time (especially in the 
hot weather that we had last week) as they come in to get cool and find 
moisture in the sink, but one or two hear and there is easily dealt with by 
a slight amount of pressure between my finger and the surface on which the 
ant is walking.  I find it is good practice to kill these scouts as they are 
the ones who report back to the colony. All in all, I'm happy with Terro, 
and I can live in an (mostly) ant free home.

Well now you all know my history (abridged) with ants.  Hope I didn't bore 
you all to death.  But Philippe, you did ask.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Philippe Bruhat (BooK)" <philippe.bruhat at free.fr>
To: <groop at groo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 17 June, 2008 17:33
Subject: Re: [Groop] Ants!!!!!


> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 05:01:01PM -0400, Alexander Durnan wrote:
>> Try Terro. It is poison,but you only have to use a little bit.
>> Its a syrup that you pour a drop on a small card, then the ants lap
>> it up.  Within a day or two...no more ants. They feed it to the queen
>> and she dies.  As goes the queen, so goes the colony.  I've used this
>> successfully myself many times.
>
> Was it really so successful, if you had to use it many times? ;-)
>
> -- 
> Philippe Bruhat (BooK)
>
> The only way to get a better government is to get better voters.
>                                   (Moral from Groo The Wanderer #109 
> (Epic))
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