"Crazy Ants" Worse Than Fire Ants?

[GoFride]

Those of us living in the southeastern U.S. are now facing a swarming invader called the "crazy ant". Crazy ants live in huge colonies with multiple queens, and are next to impossible to get rid of. People are finding them in the walls of their homes, in their cars, AC units, electronic equipment, etc. They really like electronic equipment and pretty much anything with wires. Have any Forum members had to deal with these pests yet? What worked for you - anything?

[bcr229]

Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

[The Serpent Merchant]

I don't know if they were "crazy ants" but I recently had an ant infestation that seemed to never end. I'm crazy OCD when it comes to keeping my apartment clean so I still don't know what attracted them. No ant baits worked even remotely, and it took 3 separate exterminators over the span of 6 weeks to finally get rid of the buggers.

[satomi325]

They're called Argentine ants.

Since the only way to kill a colony is to kill the queen, it's harder to kill the Argentine ants due to having multiple queens like you said.
The other queens make up for a lost queen. If you can some how find a way to kill all of the queens, that would be the best way to fix the problem.

For a temporary repellant, you can spread Diatomaceous Earth along the perimeter of your property. It shreds anything with an exoskeleton to shreds.

[BrandiR]

I had an ant problem in an apartment a couple of years ago. The only thing that worked was a gel by Dupont. We bought it online. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it starts with a V and comes in a red and white syringe looking thing. I've recommended it to a friend who also had good results with it.

[Shann]

I lived for almost year down in Florida and I had them in my apartment and in my car! At least, the pictures looked like what I had, but I don't know for sure. In my apartment I would only use natural bug sprays, like ecosmart, but didn't get rid of the problem completely. I would spray it around all the doors and windows, and the perimeter of the rooms and it worked pretty well to keep them out. I'm super allergic to most bug poisons, and don't like the idea of them anyways. I didn't have my animals when I was in florida, family members were taking care of them, so I don't know if I would use it around reptiles. I am very OCD too, but three of my roommates were slobs (and the worst roommates on earth), and they would get into our kitchen.

For a few weeks when I would drive to work I would see a couple ants crawling around. I kept finding more and more but could never locate them. When my internship ended and I had to move all of my belongings back to New Mexico I stopped in Texas to visit family. I opened my trunk up and there were hundreds of them in all of my moving boxes just swarming!! I don't know what made them come out of wherever they were hiding, but I had to unpack everything from my apartment in Florida in my cousins driveway and we pulled up whatever we could and sprayed the whole car down with ecosmart. It did the trick. But it was so gross, they were in everything I owned, and they were panicking and moving their babies around... I love bugs, but seeing a swarm of ants in your clothes and pots and pans is just nasty!

[Shann]

Bliech, I looked at some videos and those definitely looked like the ones in my apartment. I totally forgot but one day they just showed up inside our coffee table and area rug. I had just mopped the floors and vacuumed the rug the night before, and there was a giant swarm of them. Ecosmart worked on them when we sprayed them directly. But the ones in the table we were never able to get rid of, we just got rid of the table instead.