looking for opinions - house rental and ants

[anawhatsme]

hi everyone.
i just want some opinions on this...


last year we had a major ant problem (mostly in the kitchen).
we bought a few different remedies to get rid of them, but nothing really seemed to do much.
one remedy was a liquid that you squirt in areas where they gather.
apparently, they eat it up and bring it back to the queen.
it took days to see an improvement with that stuff, meanwhile we still had to deal with mass amounts of ants hanging around.
we also had ants baits that you place in areas on the floor - didn't see any results with those.

last year our baby was small enough that we could keep him out of the kitchen - this year, that isn't an option.
i can't have a bunch of poisons all over our kitchen.
so i'm thinking about using a pest control company this year.
but as renters, is it our responsibility to pay for a service, or should our landlord pay?

thanks for your help.

[jjwbuster]

I have a problem every spring with tiny ants. Last year someone recommended using cinnamon...just sprinkle around the baseboards. It worked and the ants were gone. As far as paying I would think that the landlord would be responsible but I am not 100% sure.

[saveadollardiva]

The landlord should be the one taking care of the issue and paying for it. I would call him or her and explain the situation. Tell them you have a big ant problem, you have tried to do it yourself and nothing is working and you think a expert should come in to fix the issue. Also, inform them you have a young one in the house so they know that certain chemicals can not be used. I had the same issues with ants.

[Natalka]

We're renters and we've always just looked after this ourselves.

We find the best to use is icing sugar and borax -

Home made ant killer:
---------------------
2 tablespoons of Borax
1 cup of icing sugar

More is NOT better, so stick to these measurements.

Place in flat dish in area where the ants are a problem and this should take care of them once and for all.
(shell busey's housesmart site)

One thing to check is your front lawn - that's where we found our problem was coming from - the lawn was just FULL of ants - just crazy! - BUT don't use the borax out on the lawn, or by plants! For that use boiling water, or something else.

[matrix82]

I would definitely contact your landlord. I was living in an apartment, and within two months of moving we I noticed a big problem with silverfish in the bathroom. I was going through a can of raid every two weeks. I called the landlord, and found out it was a building problem. They professionally sprayed my whole apartment which stopped the issue in my apartment.

As for ants, I currently had that problem, not as bad as yours. I used some of those traps and it fixed the issue for me.

[anastasia1009]

We bought a condo a few years ago and the last year we have been having little ants come out of the places the heater is. We have baseboard heaters so if people below us have ants we have ants. But we have been using borax or you can go to Walmart and they sell this blue bottle which is a borax mix. So far *knocks on wood* we don't have any yet.

[AmberLab]

Definitely a landlord issue, they deal with it and pay for it. When I rented, I went away for a vacation and came back to the condo being swarmed, yuck.

Now, I'm a homeowner and have no one to call but myself. But! The exterminator I had in last summer said don't put the poison all over the house (traps, the sticky liquid, etc), put it in one spot and one spot only or the ants will travel all over the house to each and every particular bait, making you think that you have more ants that you really do.

[Natalka]

I agree with AmberLab about location - we only set the stuff out along our front doorway.

[Hollywood1818]

Also try to find out what type of ants they are when i lived in residence i had a big problem with ants and i mean big pretty much all over my apartment. They had a company come and spray every month for 9months but it didn't help or fix the problem the guy told me it was probably because it was a certain kind of ant that when you spray one colony turns into 10 colonies and it just keeps expanding. These ants live in your walls so I would definitely try to find out what type of ants they are as only certain treatments work with certain ants