Eaten Alive By Ants OH My Stamps

2009 Micro Monsters set of 5 x 55c. This is the Ant out of this set.

Over the last 2 to 3 months we have had a small black ant invasion in our home. We have them in such large numbers that it rewrites my knowledge on how big an ant infestation can be. I have studied insects to the max as part of being a multidisciplinary horticulturist in a supervisory position and I have had to plan the elimination of many unpleasant insect infestation in suburbia situations.

These ants live on the most toxic treatment that I will use in our home. They are in the shower water head, the toaster, the kettle, the fridge, chairs everywhere. They are even biting us all night in bed. There are millions of them.

I have found that vinegar, metholated spirits, white oil and water sprayed 3 x a day around my stamp areas is working but not in other situation.

I can kill the ants but it will kill us as well. So I am off to the toxic chemical shop to see what is new on the market as I am about 10 years out of date on what is what.

As I write this I can hear the ants laughing at me. We will see who gets the last laugh.

My father lived in Florida for a while and a product that he swears by is one called Termidor. He used it to treat ants / termites. I don't remember what precautions one has to take with the stuff but he used it around the outside of his house.

Here is one thing I found for Termidor from Australia

http://www.termidor.com.au/ant-control/

Too bad anteaters and aardvarks aren't indigenous to Australia.

I commiserate. Our church had to battle masses of rover ants for several months last year. Everyone has seen ant mounds. We had ant mounds made of massed "dead ants", and still they kept coming. Winter seems to have been the most successful method... for now.

Best wishes for a successful battle!

Termidor is a brand name for fipronil, usually used as a barrier to treat termites. Here in Texas, we received an exemption to use fipronil to battle an infestation of a new type of "crazy ants". They came out of nowhere and nothing seems to work against them except fipronil.

While readily available, its legal use/application is restricted in many areas in the US. Don't know about the rules/regulations Down Under.

You can check out the BASF website for more info on Termidor. I'm not promoting its use, just passing along info.

Be grateful you don't live in Hungary. There the ants play the violin!



Can you imagine listening to THAT all night?

Thanks for all the chemical names. I do not like toxic chemicals but this is war!

These ants have eaten the ink out of the printer. We have had a double power socket blowout because dead ants bridged the positive and negative terminals.

I am 100% sure they have built up in large numbers for about 5 year in the wall cavities.

I am totally about my gummed stamps. I am off to the local shop to put toxic power around my stamp areas. The ants have crossed my barrier.

Last night and today these ants have become very serious. Being bitten by these ants constantly is driving us to the point of being unhinged.

The worst thing is my wife is coming home from a holiday at her mom place today. Boy! am I in trouble.

wow - that's crazy!

good luck getting rid of them

Thank you very much for the link vacuum man.

You have got me on track. I am going to get my son to pour whatever into the top of the wall cavities from inside the roof. That should destroy their home.

The supermarket on the island should have something in a power form. I will take the chemical names with me. As it is dark the poison from the pyrethrum flower should work as well.

here in Canada, 1 meter of snow and -35 C temp. takes care of them quite well

It may have come to the point where you will have to spend the bucks and hire a professional exterminator. Here in the US, they aren't as expensive as one might think. But if you allow it to get past a certain threshold, it can get pretty expensive (i.e., not just the exterminator costs).

Again, best wishes for a successful battle -- whoever gets involved.

[EDIT: Removed paragraph on using grease. I now realize you were talking about wall outlets. I was thinking something larger.]

The mild winter and rain here is sufficient to have killed many of them and sent the remainder deep below for these few months.

The trouble is, Spring...

I lived in Florida, and we had grapefruit and lemon trees in the yard. Ants (at least those ants) would not cross a line of dried lemon juice on the floor. We had terrazzo floors so it was easy to do.

Another strategy, at night put something they like in the middle of the kitchen floor. In the mornings, there should be thousands. Vacuum them up and seal the sweeper bag in a larger plastic bag with twist-ties. Might cost you $25 worth of bags before you make a dent in them, but it's 100% environmentally safe.



"...Being bitten by these ants constantly is driving us to the point of being unhinged."
So there IS a side benefit, after all...train them to lick off the hinge glue and leave the stamp gum alone, your collection will soar in value.

The day I joined my newlywed wifes church, came out out church, the car next to ours had a dead battery. I offered to give them a jump from my car, I didn't realize that I was standing in a fire ant mound, two days later the inside ofmy right knee looked like someone had dribbled a basketball on it. Nice and swollen.

This reminds me of many years ago..an elderly gent at the post office invited me to see his stamps...unfortunately his stamps were in cardboard boxes sitting in the cellar floor...i think I was more amazed than he was when I opened the box...the paper eaters we call silver fish had come in through the bottom and had eaten their way to the top through sheets of stamps !

Sorry James but that is a grasshopper playing the violin. Since I don't read Hungarian I am going to guess that it is a reference to Aesop's fable "The Grasshopper and the Ant" which to summarize...the ants work hard all year round but the grasshopper just sat around playing and having fun so when winter hit the ants were prepared while the grasshopper died.

This would also suggest that Gilles snow reference is incorrect as the ants have prepared for this possibility.

KGV, sounds bad. Before you head to bed some night, you should watch the movie "Them". That should make you feel better. regards, yakboomer.