HA HA Brigidlilly, I think they do carry around very small trumpets!!! ( : jackie
Fireants....I hate them!
Sheila,
Are you are talking about the joints in the mortar so it can expand, I guess they call them weep holes?
We bought some like brillo pads and cut them to fit in these slots so bugs don't get in.
Aimee, that's a good idea, if it keeps the ants out. Is the weave on those small enough? We haven't actually had the fire ants making nests there but neighbors have. I've seen red wasps around mine tho.
Yes, and no. They lay the eggs on the surface between bricks and adhere them to the mortar. The weep holes are one place they can gain access to the house though. He is a disgusting article. Look at the American (Water bugs) & Smokey Browns.
http://www.epestsupply.com/cockroaches.htm#AMERICAN%20COCKROACH
Those waterbugs are a whole other type of problem! Ants are annoying but those things are downright scary sometimes!! My parents live in the house that used to be my grandparent's and it's always had them.
Many moons ago I lived with my grandparents for a little while and I can still remember the fear of them just appearing or getting on me. They would come thru this heating vent/coil in the ceiling. I'd hear a scratching and every once in a while they would actually FALL from it, thus the FEAR!! LOL!!
This is a great memory I have of my grandmother. She was a little lady about in her 70's when this happened. She got down on her hands and knees in the bathroom looking for a waterbug (nicer word than roach). She didn't find it, walked around the hall into the kitchen and suddenly started yelling and instantly dropped her pants and started coming out of her clothes!! ROFL!!! It had gone up her pant leg when she was on the floor!! LOL....that was just hilarious and such a great memory for me.
Oh, anyways back to the bug, my parents have finally started winning the battle. using Borax and sticky baits. They also used that foam stuff to plug up places they could come in or hide in. Good luck!
Konkreteblond, LOL that's a good story! And congrats to your parents for their victory. We have been using similar stragegy in a house built in 51 by DH's grandparents. They had them really bad too and were too old to care. So by the time we came along in '90 they were really bad. I have borax in many cabinets, and I'm not sure but I think before we used the foam a snake got in somehow. I hear something behind the sheetrock sometimes and the roach population took a nosedive very suddenly.
konkreteblonde,
Hmmm never thought of it to keep ants out of the house, if you are talking about ants you must mean sugar ants. I have not seen any problems with fireants trying to nest in the house. I would spray for the wasps part. I haven't had those clinging to my house but one house in the neighborhood has several nesting up on the eaves every year (can't figure that one out?). We do keep bowls of food/water for the cats on both floors and go figure, one day FIRE ANTS had actually crawled up the inner walls and into the middle room of the 2nd floor to devour the food in the cat bowl! It was strange! But we tossed the food and my DH has a pest spray he mists along all the baseboards. I don't know what he uses but it hasn't discolored the walls or carpets. He does it about once a month and it rids us of all kinds of bugs. Sugar ants are a whole other story and I think only a professional pest control place can rid anyone of these.
Sheila,
EW the water cockroach! Had my first meeting with them as a new texan (I tease my husband that I come from Michigan where we had no bugs-HA). I was in a new apartment, went to the bathroom after DH left for work, not wearing my glasses. There in the tub right by the toilet was a large black spot. Hmmm? I ran to get the glasses. EWWWWW! It was a BIG water roach! ICK! I ran to the kitchen, got a tupperware bowl and my heavy recipe box, slammed the bowl over the roach and topped it with the box so he couldn't move. I called maintenance as soon as possible. But the fear kinda left and I felt angry that I had been invaded and remembering my dad's advice (who once was a pest control guy) that, "If you see one there's more" so I spent the morning peering deep into every cupboard and crevice looking for the parents. Luckily he was alone. What was sick was my husband had JUST finished showering and then it managed to crawl up 3 flights into the tub drain!? I had them one more time at a duplex in Bryan TX we rented but since moving to my own house have not seen any.
We have a few outside up here, but nothing like they have down south of here near the Gulf Coast.
Hello, Im fairly new at this DG, and recently moved from IL to Tx. With parts of my garden that, I plan on just planting long term plants... I level the soil and place plastic tarp (for gardening) then buy me bags of sand... to keep the ants away! Part of the yard has a beach feel to it....
Ps: I had made the mistake of using the sand from sandbags we no longer needed re: for possible flooding during hurricane season, and it looks very sloppy, becuz it's mixed with tiny rocks..... HD has sand for sale, located inside the store for about $2.75 and the more expensive bags outside in the garden area, for like $3.25...sand is sand? Isn't it? (lol)
good old kitchen flour will kill the ants - sprinkle it on top of the mounds. My husband didn't believe me until he saw it work!
Never heard that one before--Wemowit--I'll try it since we've always got flour................actually I think my cursing tantrum must have "drove" them out of the yard............haven't seen any since, and believe me, I've had my eye out for them!
Alamoaimee...I hate to ask where your duplex in bryan was? Since I'm living in one now.... As for the roaches, all I can say is that up north if you see a roach it's horribly disgusting (I'm from OH)...but down here in my lab, if one turns up no one even cares. And these are big ones too! The first time I saw one I screamed and ran out of the lab! The only good thing is that most of the ones we see are dead, but still.....eeewwwww!!!!! In fact, there were 2 big dead ones in the hallway when I came in this morning, yuck! I can stand about anything in a house....ants, snakes, spiders....anything but roaches. Haven't seen anything like that around my duplex and neither has my neighbor, thank goodness. And I make sure to move and clean under everything I possibly can just in case...lol.
Kim
Kim, after I graduated from A&M, I worked in the chemistry dept. and there was always atleast 1 somewhere in one of the halls. I've heard that the big ones are really just water bugs and supposedly don't carry disease like the little ones do. But still they are gross. They used to give me nightmares when I was a kid growing up in Houston.
Mary Lee
I'll have to disagree with the idea that spearmint repels ants. I have a whole bed, across the front of my house, that is full of spearmint. I've had the ants build mounds IN the spearmint bed!
Mary
Are they fire ants or native ants?
There have been FIRE ants in the bed. I know because I got stung when I was thinning out the mint. There is also an ant that is half red/half black... I think those are the wood ants?
Mary
I bet the fireants will be building mounds everywhere now that we've had some rain!
Debbie
(once bitten...twice shy!)
All,
Could not resist this thread.
We were active kayakers years ago, and the joke was always if you wanted to find fireants or poison ivy, just try to take a nature break near the river or lake.
The Texas Tree Roach is the BIG bug that most of you are talking about, but that creature lives under tree bark and other wood material. When you see one inside - it got lost. The female lays one egg with one nit - glues it to something, then moves on. They can and do come in through the sewer lines.
Don't completely plug the brick weep holes, or you will have a terrible mold problem. They are there to allow the water vapor to disipate. Screens are a good idea, just don't use steel - it rusts.
Roaches to worry about include the German, Brown banded, Formosan, etc. These carry their egg sack with them, and will release it if they sense poison to save the nits - up to 42 nits per egg sack! They can be found in cardboard and paper bags from the grocery.
At our restaurant - every delivery of sodas, is a risky proposition. Cannot spray, and sprays only kill what it hits. Baits are the most effective - even RAID scientists said that on a national TV interview.
To paraphrase an old cavelry motto: The only good fierant is a dead fireant!
As for wasps - several species - all will attack if disturbed. The long distance sprays are the best.
Forgot one other ant deterrent my daughter told me about. She lives in Kansas and had ants in several of her garden beds. Had tried several remedies without fail. The one that worked was cinnamon. She just sprinkled it in the beds and voila... no more ants.
Mary
I wish it were that simple with fireants.....
I discovered the other day that fire ants had invaded my compost... inside my new Compostumbler. I dumped a bunch of dry molasses in, as I have heard they don't like that. sure hope it works. Who wants compost full of fire ants?!
Mary
That molasses should cook your compost really fast too. Any kind of sugar will activate the composting process.
Two new huge mounds of fire ants... both right around new plants. Tried the orange oil/water treatment and hope that works.
Mary
Are they still in the compost?
They've moved to the "cracks" in the driveway at my house...but at least their "easy to see" and to "avoid" and to MURDER! LOL
Debbie
Yeah so I'm telling my husband, oh look at this cute bug on the driveway....it's like an 8 shape and the head is black but the back is like white or something. "So cute!" DOH! FIREANT....QUEEN of fireants. He squashed it on site.
PLEASE don't spend your money on the ONCE A YEAR ant killing granules. PLEASE!
They don't cost much more than the every season ones but they don't even work as good as for ONE season!!! We are switching back. Tried the once a year remedy in February. Seeing fireants all over the concrete areas already. What a waste!
Can't wait for the mounds we'll soon see after this latest round of rain...spotted another one in an area out back near some echinaceas last night...the battle in on, gardeners!
It will probably take months for the scars on my arms to start to fade...
Debbie
I am sorry but when it comes to fire ants I have no sympathy and I am unabashadly telling you that I use artificial chemicals and while I appreciate the kinder, gentler means that many mentioned until someone can show me that something works better I rely on Bayer Fire ant...white powder. Yes sometimes the mound moves, but it is measurably smaller and I see lots of dead ants at the old mound! Nothing gets me more upset w/ the little buggers than when they bite my poor little grandson...last weekend as he was crying, in his sadest voice he said, "Those bad ants!"
I will wait for Debbie to tell me that something works better. Debbie that was a really nice picture you painted at the begining of this thread, I was laughing but not at you! You could have been an English teacher!
I do agree the once a year treatments don't really work, or at lease not for long enough.
((clap clap))
DEBBIE:
Compliments that go around come around!!! Congrats on your writing!
Believe it or not, I barely made it thru college English...I'm so math/science right-brained its pathetic. But I thank ya'll for your kind compliments. We, being from the south, enjoy a good story so I try to tell one too! You just have to overlook my grammer and spelling..............
April, I'm almost ashamed to admit it but I got out there today with the pyrethrum powder (that's a big organic gun--hope I didn't kill too many monarchs and ladybugs) and enjoyed every second watching those spawns of lucifer himself squirm and keel over dead. I was almost kicking my heels in ecstasy at their deaths. And I plan to get out there tomorrow and do the same thing on every mound that springs up from this mornings' and tonights expected storms. I hope the karmic penalties are not to high for this deadly rampage of mine. To quote another famous southern woman, "I'll worry about that tomorrow".
Debbie
natural born fire ant killer
edited to add: The folks next door did not sell their house during open house that day; guess no one wanted to move in next door to the "madwoman" gardener...
This message was edited May 6, 2006 8:35 PM
Their loss, think of the entertainmant value! Heck they wouldn't need cable w/ you next door! LOL.
Good thing you have a good sense of humor.
Oddly enough, even though I cannot spell to save my life, I am so LT brain functioning that it is hard to believe that I made it through nursing school and worked in ICU for many years.
My husband always gets a chuckle out of me out there killing ants, I don't know why but I enjoy watching them squirm and die...I am sure that it is going to come back and bite me in the butt someday...I will probably have to come back in many, many lives as a fire ant...but that will be after my lives as a reincarnated cockroach...it's going to be along road.
I like to tap their mounds when I go for walks and see one. I just can't help myself. DH always tells me to STOP IT but I just am so new to this phenomenon, we don't have these up north yet. I just can't believe when you tap their mound how a gazillion of these things come out!!! It's crazy!!!! We never have mounds in our yard since we treat but with all the rain it's bringing some new scouts over from neighboring yards. Have to get some serious killer granules. =)
Oh man I do the same thing w/ my grandson. I read that the mounds are like the proverbial tip of the ice berg! The other thing that I do is point out to whomever is in the car w/ me all the huge untreated mounds in everybody's yard, on medians, in the landscaping of strip malls, etc. Drives my kids crazy. LOL that is the best part for me.
Had to get out there tonight and put the DE under the spigot on the side of the house--they were thinking they could "sabatoge" me when I turn on the hose to water the pots. Evil, conniving little rascals...
Yes, you can never let up on them!
I have a propane weeding torch and love to cook fireants with it! Sounds evil, I know, but they are evil little creatures.
Amen to that Patricia!
April,
LOL I love to point out the mounds on everyone's lot. I am proud to say haven't had any here in the year we've lived here. But we treat. And sometimes will see the little armies of ants parading across the driveway looking for a home. Out comes the killer.
Patricia, you devil...hmm where can I get my hands on one of those torches...muahahahaha!
I treat my ants as soon as I see them and my neighbors often see me checking out all parts of my lot, kicking at suspicious lumps in the turf! I can't figure out why folks allow huge mounds to remain & grow on their lots, in their plants, etc. It drives me crazy!
April,
Ditto that. They are just too easy to destroy! LOL.