ant infestation...please help

[blacksockz]

Hi all,
My 3 year old woke me up this morning, rather frantically, and brought me to the laundry room where I discovered hundreds of teeny ants.
I killed whatever was there, but they seem to me ignoring all my efforts and keep coming back. I did some research and found there are a variety of ants, but I can't figure out which one is mine
Has anyone had any experience with in-house ants, are they Pharaoh or Carpenter? Also, I was reading up about ant exterminators and they seem to cost an absolute fortune!!! Has anyone done this themselves??!!
Thanks.

[Eeyore]

If the situation is that bad I would call an exterminator. You may be seing only part of the problem. You can use the baits but I don't think you'll eradicate the problem that way. Also, you said basement. Has your basment had any water problems that would create a source for the nest?

[Countryboy]

There once was an influx of Ants every Spring in both the houses here. As soon as we saw them in the open . . usually on kitchen countertops . . . I set drops of Ant poison on 1" squares of tinfoil. Somewhere where the Ants could get to it easily. They collect the syrupy poison and take it back to their nests. Yr kids might like to see them all gather around the bait sites gathering it up.

In the past I've been tardy perfecting this technique and the Ant population built up. This year we were on it immediately. The total number of Ants this year were maybe 2 dozen . . . if that.

No need to call in the expensive guys I think. My bet is that a couple of bucks and a bit of time could solve yr problem.

[Penny1948]

I've had an ant problem every year that I have lived in my house,(11 years) except this year. Not one. Ant's have habits and they pretty much follow the path of other ants from year to year. Whenever I saw ants inside I put the liquid drops where I saw them but then I'd have to leave them along so othey would carry the poison back to the nest. It was a nightmare! until one day while I was outside, I noticed a bunch of ants, going about their business and I thought to myself, 'what if I feed them outside?' So I put about 5-6 drops of the poison where they were hanging around and before I knew it, they were all drinking it up. I started counting the number of ant nests that would be sharing it. It must have worked because this year, none.

[CdnChelsea]

Every spring we are bothered by tiny ants so I place a few drops of CIL liquid ant killer on their travel path. The ant killer is in a yellow squeeze bottle which can be bought at your local Home Hardware store and it seems to work very well.
They drink up the liquid and take it back to their nest to feed everyone else.