Ants!!! - San Francisco,CA

Frankly, I don't think any natural products really help. A family member battled ants without chemicals, without success, for 5 long years--- and finally broke down and called a pest company. They sprayed once, outside, and she never saw ants again!

Maybe you could try leaving "meals" outside for them, some cut fruit, since they seem to want sweet stuff....if they are just needing food that bad that they seem to be "waiting"... Maybe they would find it and congregate on it outside, instead of coming inside?

In my experience, you have to use toxics to get rid of ants. Natural remedies don't work, or not for any length of time, particularly if you have a lot of ants. The quickest, cleanest, and most long-lasting thing to do is hire a pest control company to spray outside. They will locate the ants' nest, and target it.

If you have a house that's built on a concrete slab, you can try spraying one of the commercial preparations all around the outside of your house, where the house meets the ground, but this won't be as effective as having a pest control company do it, and you will probably inhale a lot more toxic spray than you want.

We've been using the Terro liquid ant traps, which just contain sugar and boric acid, so they're really not that toxic (as long as your child or pets don't eat them, of course). We have a toddler too, so I try to make sure there aren't residual chemicals hanging around. I place the traps on the counter out of reach, like behind the microwave and sink, and behind the fridge, etc. It usually takes at least a week to help, but we've really been seeing a difference when we put out at least four of the traps, along with cleaning the kitchen and taking out the trash every night. I've also heard that spraying outside can really help, like others have suggested, although I haven't tried that personally.

We've had good luck with the Terro products also. And if you can trace back to where they seem to be coming in from, see if you can caulk or otherwise block it (we had some coming in through an unused electrical outlet for a while so we covered it with masking tape)
www.askthebugman.com might have some other suggestions that don't involve highly toxic chemicals.

I think the only solution may be to hire a pest control company. Ants are hard to get rid of and a pest company can spray in the walls/outlets etc. and they also guarantee their work. I have a a 2 year old, a newborn and a dog and we haven't had any problems at all.

Our last house had insect issues as well, only for us it was black widow spiders! It absolutely freaked me out! I called Orkin. They sprayed the outside perimeter of our house every month and I never saw another spider in the house. I imagine they could do the same for ants. Why not call them and see what options are available? I'd imagine they have something that is safe to use around children and pets.