Ants, Ants, Ants!!!!!!

10-15-2007, 05:39 AM

My wife, labrador and I took our first trip this weekend. Had a question with regards to ants. There seemed to be alot on the interior. Do they get in crawling up the tires or jacks or anything touching the ground? We were diligent about not keeping food out to keep from attracting them but there were ants all weekend. Any suggestions? One of our fellow campers told us about Comet but I wasn't sure.

countrygirl · 10-15-2007, 06:34 AM

I have heard that on any type camper that ants can enter a camper by what ever touches the ground. So I carry a can of ant pray with me and spray the tires and the power cord. I have not had a problem. I have read about ants marching up the power cord and tires on various types of campers. We also empty the trash daily and if we eat something sweet/sticky...like a danish for breakfast we take the trash out immediately. Our last campout was dry campiong with a generator. We had been set up for an hour or two and a neighbor camper said...ANTS...don't forget to spray!

10-15-2007, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by countrygirl

I have heard that on any type camper that ants can enter a camper by what ever touches the ground. So I carry a can of ant pray with me and spray the tires and the power cord. I have not had a problem. I have read about ants marching up the power cord and tires on various types of campers.

countrygirl,

Depending on the ant spray you use, I think some pesticides can be harmful to rubber products. Some ant sprays contain high concentrations of petroluem distallates.

We can't keep ants out of our house, so we don't expect to keep them out of the TM.....but we keep trying on both accounts.

Chap

countrygirl · 10-15-2007, 07:06 AM

Thanks Chap...I did not know about that...guess I better read the label!

10-15-2007, 10:38 AM

Something like Ortho Home Defense should be OK even if you get it on the tires. I would spray it around the tires, the jacks and anything else that touches the ground. Don't forget the water hose and the power stanchion. Home defense is odorless, so you don't have to put up with the smell of some of the other products. It is also available in granules if you prefer that method of application. http://www.homedefensemax.com/scotts...?event=product

10-15-2007, 01:28 PM

I used to love Ortho Home Defense to kill ants and spiders. But they have apparently changed their formula and now the only way to kill ants with it is to drown them in the container! I tried another spray (Bayer I believe) and it seems to work very well. There is really no need to spray the tires...just spray the ground around them as well as anything else which touches the ground. Good luck...we also have trouble keeping them out of the house but seem to be temporarily winning.

10-15-2007, 06:39 PM

I will sometimes run some wires out the back of the fridge vent to run exterior speaker. The ants used it as a freeway to the kitchen. I used some random ant spray on the wires. No harm that I could see to the wires. But these wires are basically an extension cord for speaker so they are easy to replace.

countrygirl · 10-15-2007, 07:36 PM

Thanks for the link........I will get some home defense from Ortho an try that next.

**B_and_D** · 10-15-2007, 08:30 PM

I'm just curious, are these big ants? Here at home we have the tiny ones, but they come in droves sometimes. Mostly they like to get into the kitchen and the bathrooms. We used to have great success with Grant's ant stakes, but they seem to have lost their effectiveness in the last few years. I'm still experimenting with different types of bait/spray/poisons.

They really are pesky little creatures, but they do serve a purpose in the environment (but not in my TM or my house!).

About 10 years ago, we had a really freakish incident here. On a fairly hot afternoon in the fall, there were literally sheets of them marching down our retaining wall in front of the driveway and crawling across the driveway. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them, the path was 3 feet across. I grabbed a bottle of malathion, mixed some with sugar, and sprinkled it across and up and down their path. They were gone by the next morning. I really don't like to use chemicals around the house for bugs, but this was an exception.

countrygirl · 10-15-2007, 08:44 PM

Wow...that is a lot of ants. I was worried that we might get some in the house after all the rain we had a couple of weeks ago...32 inches of rain in about 15 days. Usually a lot of rain will send the lil buggers in....but so far no ants. Still have water standing in a few spots of the yard.