France in Focus

We've had mice for years, since 2011 despite our best efforts. They tend to get into some of our kitchen draws which have gaps at the back. I hoover the droppings as soon as I see them.

Now the ants are more annoying. We've seen a few in the house over the last few days but today, I had hundreds in the bedroom, the hallway and the lounge.

I've tried the homemade recipe of bicarb and icing sugar today, so far it hasn't worked. Using ant spray kills them but doesn't seem to stop them coming back plus I don't like to use it because of the animals.

I hate ants in the house. Any suggestions to eliminate them?

Ants are a nightmare here too. One room has floorboards on joists straight on top of sand and the ants come up through the cracks. I hoover or sweep them up but I also use either an ant powder, or the gel in tubes, which works really well. Apparently they take the powder or gel back to the nest which is supposed to get rid of them. They are the only things I've found that actually get rid of them.

Mice in the house ... that's a much more serious matter because mouse droppings and urine can cause disease. Your best bet would be to contact a "dératisation" company who should be able to get rid of them and advise you on prevention.

For mice I use traps like these. Easy to empty out the carcass & reset. The same bait lasts ages & kills many. Our cat bought a mouse in which escaped under the kitchen units. I put a trap in & 1/2w hour later it was an ex. mouse.

For ants a few drops of this product kills them all when they take it back to their nest I

I've been searching for the ant nests but can't seem to find a trail leading to a nest, does that matter with the gel product?

manonthemoon2 wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 9:03 pm I've been searching for the ant nests but can't seem to find a trail leading to a nest, does that matter with the gel product?

No. As long as enough take it back you'll get 'em.
This is the result of a few drops I put out when there was a nest in a wall with ants both inside & outside. The ants seem to bring out their dead so you'll find out where the nest is.

manonthemoon2 wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 9:03 pm I've been searching for the ant nests but can't seem to find a trail leading to a nest, does that matter with the gel product?

The gel product is incredibly attractive to them so if you put a few drops down where you see some ants, they'll be drawn to it. I've never seen quite as many ants as LAF's photo (fortunately). It works best on a hard surface like a tiled floor.

Thank you, off to the shops tomorrow for the gel product.

Do ants only "come out" daytimes? I ask because the bedroom now has no live ants just the dead ones I exterminated before.

I love that word.... "exterminate"

We had a plague of ants a while ago, but the gel products didn't seem to affect some persistent ones coming via the garden door. There were also some, which a friend called house ants, nesting in the garage roof, carrying in scraps of black material, travelling up the outside and inside walls where the gel wouldn't stay.
By searching I found https://lasvegas.rentokil.com/blog/6-na ... -rid-ants/ and other Internet sources. I tried a few of the suggestions, but found small pieces of cinnamon stick very effective. We have a large jar of it, and the small pieces I placed around the doors, skirting, and in cracks in the garage parpaign walls they were coming through, still seem effective.

We've had no problems with little critters (apart from what the cats bring in!), since we plugged in those rodent repellent ultrasound things back in January. Six in a pack, just plug them in at near floor height in the worst places of the house. I thought they were just for repelling rats and mice, but it does claim to put off insects too, and seems to.

So far this year, touch wood, it's been ok - and our old house is also full of gaps where they can come in, and we're not clinically clean either, so there's always bound to be some crumbs lieing around as temptation!

Ants are repelled by Talcum powder. We put it down where they are coming in and around and that always stops the problem/