Ants

I dont think they are coming in the house-it would seem they are living in the house-not sure of the life -cycle of an ant but if they are warm and dry in a spot indoors they may continue breeding in the winter,

Usual precautions about sugar,sweet substances etc-my Mother would always use Nippon ant killer they take the poison back to the nest-try that it is available everywhere

http://www.vitax.co.uk/index.php/area/pest-control/ants-crawling-insects/nippon-ant-killer-liquid/

Make sure you're not causing the ant problem Lyndylu. I've had 3 attacks of house ants. The first one was when a large houseplant (can't remember what after all the years) dripped sticky stuff on the floor. The second was in the kitchen, I'm always spilling something. The third is recurrent in the sitting room where my 92 year old mother drops food on the carpet all the time. 

Have you any plants in pots which you put outside during the summer and bring in for the winter?  Ants often take up residence in the pots, particularly in wet summers like the last one - ants prefer dry soil and will seek out pots etc which are above the water table.  

If you have any such plants on your windowsills I suggest you stand them in a washing up bowl full of water for a few hours and let them have a really good soak until the surface of the soil is wet - I bet the ants come out!  You'll have to squidge them then  

If the water table is high in your garden, they may be moving into your wall cavities!  Use Nippon. 

ants will come in,if they think they have a nice warm damp and food supply as did my homing slugs(they were found to be coming up through the floor boards were we found the leak).Wash your floor with a bleach or strong detergent as ants follow the scent trail back to their nest,this wipes out the scent,you'll need to do it a good few times and put down bait at nest point,the old way was to put a small amount of jam in a jar and then trap and dispose but now a days you put poison down which they take back to their nest.it is a bind but nature is there to feed one thing against another.

My floor could do with a scrub if you get a spare minute Lyndylu

Hi Lyn i remember when granma and everybody in the street used to scrub the floors the front door step and sweep the causeway on the road outside there house everyday and they still got ants in the house especially in those old larders with the drop down fronts, the ants used to nick the sugar,the people used to moan about them even then and i still  see the old larders in the auctions now and again no ants though-bit of a b----y nuisance for you, hope, you get rid of em ,good luck Lyn

Lyndylu25 wrote (see)

When I recover I shall grab my mop and bucket.

Thanks Lindylu

Hi Lyndylu25, you have some chances to fight organic against the ants susseccful: look HERE. No country have more ants than Thailand! We have no chance to win this fight. We have to live together with them and this is okay for us. Best luck, ThaiGer.

Looking at the tips on the link above, I would've thought that cider vinegar would make the problems worse - the ants will come after the fruit sugars in it 

We had flying ants in our bathroom every summer and eventually dicovered that they had a big nest under the floor. We destroyed it, but they built it again the following year. I found piles of dust un the corner of the sitting room (next to the bathroom in our bungalow) and realised that these were carpenter ants. Our home remedies - ant powder and spray - did not work and we had to call in the professionals. At a price (around £100) they got rid of them, but if it had not worked, we would have needed a second visit and a second £100. We also had to repair cracks in the exterior render that made it possible for them to enter along the bathroom pipes.

Years ago, we also had a problem with garden ants coming in from the garden in ranks, like the Roman army. After a few years of this, we got a company to spray around the house, only £10 in those days. It worked like magic. We did not see another ant (in the house, anyway).