| Author | Message | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat) (68.7.217.217)
Rating: |
Since the day I bought my Crown, it's had ants. As I tore it up for the conversion, I literally removed 100+ pounds of dirt from behind foot-guards, under seats, in walls, etc. In one of the major piles there was actually a full-blown ant nest with millions of the little buggers. I hosed. I vacuumed I poisioned I steamed I put down diatomacious earth I squashed I plugged holes... I have now owned it for almost two years and I've been booning weeks in the hot miserable desert, in the rain, etc and I STILL cannot get rid of the frikking ants. There aren't many, maybe 100 or so, but always 100 or so. Just enough that no matter where I am in the bus or under it, I always notice one moving somewhere, and when sleeping I usually have a few trepsing across my face at night... I'm getting sick of the critters and I havn't figured a truly good way of getting them gone forever. Tonight as I was putting the finishing touches on my engine-driven A/C, ten or so of them romped out of the evaporator and flipped me off...AARGH!!! I don't like poison so much so I'm not gonna spray the interior... just wondering if any of you have a novel solution to this aggrivating problem.... Cheers Gary | ||
| RJ Long (Rjlong) (24.127.74.29)
Rating: N/A |
Gary - Awhile back, don't know if it was here on BNO or on one of the other boards, but there was a receipe for getting rid of ants using boric acid and sugar. Seems they haul the acid-laced suger back to the nest, and it kills the colony. I tried it in an area of our house that's prone to the little guys, and it worked for a good six months or so before I had to treat again. Seems to me the receipe came off of a stick 'n staple RV forum. Does anybody else remember this, and possibly have the link? RJ PD4106-2784 Fresno CA | ||
| Anne Harris (209.240.198.60) Rating: N/A |
Gary, Thanks for the laugh after a long day! Ants have my house surrounded, I have lost five pounds.No place left to make sandwich:•( I will have to park my NEW MCI-7 on an ant infested lawn. There is no other place for me to load bus. I do not wish to have ants on my face!!! HELP! Anne | ||
| Jim (209.173.120.156) Rating: N/A |
Call the extermator: | ||
| Phil (204.89.170.126) Rating: N/A |
While you don't want to use poison, I have had good luck with a can of "fogger" that is used to get rid of fleas. Follow the directions removing all food and cooking and eating utensils s the stuff gets everywhere. It took care of an ant infestation I had after returning from boondocking in a field at an airshow in Florida!!! | ||
| Phil Dumpster (12.230.214.167) Rating: N/A |
To add to Phil's message, I have had good results from the Raid smoke-type foggers as opposed to the aerosol-type foggers. You can safely overdose with the smoke-type fogger without fear of blowing up your coach with the aerosol-type (which, incedentally, is flammable.) The smoke-type foggers are identifiable as a cannister that you place in a cup that has a small amount of water in it. The membrane protecting the contents dissolves and the chemicals mix with the water, producing dense smoke loaded with permethrin. Kills most anything. You can safely run the heaters and AC and fans while using these foggers, in order to kill whatever is living inside. They come in packs of three for around $10 - for a 40 foot coach with a serious ant problem I'd use at least nine. Six units in the interior, and three units underneath the coach. You'll also need a large tarp or a few rolls of visqueen sheeting to make a tent to seal the gap between the underside of the coach and wheelwells and the ground, like a temporary mobile home skirt. If you can cover the entire coach with plastic sheeting, so much the better since the ants undoubtedly are in the walls as well. After deploying the foggers, leave the coach alone for at least 8 hours. Best to do all of this on a windless day if you can. Afterwards, spray the underside thoroughly with a good insecticide that controls ants. Personally, I wouldn't be able to sleep in a coach which had insect or arachnid infestation problems. Just too gross the thought of those things crawling over me while I sleep. | ||
| two dogs (67.30.23.119) Rating: N/A |
depends on what kind of ants,what size are they?little piss ants,bombs work,big red ants need the granuals | ||
| Scott Whitney (66.82.9.24) Rating: N/A |
This may not help Gary's situation, but could be of interest to those at an the early conversion stages. Somewhere I had heard that ants don't like tar paper used for roofing. (can anyone confirm?) So when I was replacing my floor, I placed a layer of tar paper btwn the metal floor beams and the plywood floor. My coach has no baggage bays, so this tar paper also helped serve as a moisture barrier. However, I can say that I do not have an ant problem. Don't know if it is attributed to the tar paper or not. . . But I do have Daddy Long Legs and I even killed a small scorpion once. Yuck. I used to avoid bug posions, but after a few criters walked across my face at night, I gave up and now I poison the crap out of the ba$+&rds. Scott | ||
| Linda (12.94.2.222) Rating: N/A |
I'll add my testimonial to the smoke-type foggers mentioned above by Phil Dumpster. We had an ant problem in the house due to "white-footed" ants apparently setting up house in our crawl space. Impossible to get up there. The worst signs of the infestation were in the guest bath. We removed a "high-hat" light fixture in that room and reached thru the hole to put one of the smokers into the crawl space. I'd never used them before, so only put one. There was improvement, so I followed up with a second one and that seems to have done the trick. I think Phil's suggestion is a good one. As for the bus, we actually had dry wood termites once, in the rooftop a/c framing, and had to have it tented. And don't you think the neighbors just loved the sight of that!! LOL. | ||
| Pat Parker (141.149.142.187) Rating: N/A |
A liquid ant killer product called TERRO (www.terro.com) has helped us with both small ants and large carpenter ants. Some times takes a while after you put it out for them to be attracted and start eating but they take it back to the nest to kill the rest. We hate "creepy crawlers" too. Good Luck | ||
| Henry R. Bergman, Jr. (Henryofcj) (63.164.175.25)
Rating: N/A |
Ants? Ants?? ANTS!!!??? Oh no Gary, and here I thought I had problems with those millions of pesty flying bugs that crawl across the ceiling towards you then... ...flop down on top of you at night then bite you leaving red bite marks kinda like spider bits or hornet stings and worse than skitters. Could not figure out... ...how they were getting in until I spied one crawling between a rubber window seal and a vertical side window. Crowns have this weird side bus window water drainage system... ...that keeps rain water out of the bus, but it is NOT insect proof. Sossss, Gary, I may have to do what you may have to do and just gas the buggers. I also have mice problems, but we will postpone the glories of Crown Super Coach ex-school bus ownership for another post. Good luck Gary and...CROWNS FOREVER!!!  | ||
| modelt (208.18.102.7) Rating: N/A |
The Pesty Ant How's that again? You just opened the kitchen cupboard and found a whole army of little ants running around all over the honey jar. Take heart the sweet tooth that brought the littles pests into the house in the first place can also help you get rid of them. Mix a solu tion of sugar or honey and water, dip sponges in the solution squeeze out the excess moisture and leave these home made traps around where they are the worst. when they have gather the ants just put in boil water and start again. Or if you don't want to do that then clean the area real good and put a thin layer of salt down in the area and leave for a little while and they will just leave. This is from the Mother Earth News Almanac hope this helps you out. Also there is a page in the book that says you can lay the stems from bananas and these will attract them too and just throw them out. From my wife and her days in the Cabin; Use black pepper where they see to be concentrated, leaving a neat little pile for them. No they don't sneeze themselves to death or have rock fights. | ||
| David & Lorna Schinske (Davidschinske) (64.24.236.161)
Rating: N/A |
Try 50% Laundry Borax (like 20 mule team type) and 50% powdered sugar. Mix together and sprinkle on ant piles & on known ant trails. Keep away from pets. Good luck! Lorna | ||
| Mike M (64.252.216.228) Rating: N/A |
If you are against poison, howza bout an Ant Eater for a pet? Don't know how you'd get rid of the Ant Eater when the ants are gone though... | ||
| JD-Crown.GA (66.245.140.206) Rating: N/A |
That part's easy! 425 for 30 minutes with a light teriyaki glaze! Jim | ||
| Stephen Fessenden (Sffess) (65.154.176.187)
Rating: N/A |
Are you sure they are not carpenter ants? Those are the ants that build nests in wood and they destroy the wood to make their nests. If you have carpenter ants, you need to have an exterminator use the appropriate poisons. The guy I bought my car trailer from had $5000 damage done to his fifth wheel trailer by carpenter ants picked up parking over a nest at a campground. It only took a year for them to do the damage. Take them seriously. A lot of trees arount my house have carpenter ants. They are not rare. My carpenter ants are big, bull ants, but there may be other varieties. I don't bother them in the trees, but I will poison them if I find any in my bus. The advice on boric acid is correct and you don't need to add sugar, just use the boric acid. My exterminator uses it for light carpenter ant infestations also. | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat) (68.7.217.217)
Rating: N/A |
No carpenter ants. Just the stupid little San Diegan buggers. We have a neat bungle happening here... seems someone brought in some argentine ants many years ago that have a genetic mutation that stops rival tribes from warring...so now almost all of California has a "supercolony" of these pesty creatures. All I have to do is lay just ONE thing against the side of my bus and it's instant ant highway to the interior. I hate em, but there's no getting rid of them... thank god they're not carpenters or big red monsters.... Thanks for the suggestions from everyone... I'll probably try most of them in the coming week, and nail the little buggers for sure!!! Cheers Gary | ||
| Craig Craddock (24.127.59.100)
Rating: N/A |
One of the spots I go to has major piss ant problems, this is private property that about 24 RV's of us spend 2 weeks plus annually there. What we do as soon as we arrive is to take Comet the sink cleanser and sprinkle it completely around each tire, electric cable, water hose, & etc. This has worked 100% for us in the summer from having a bus full of ants. One catch even if one single blade of grass, weed is touching the body, under carriage anywhere you have a problem. I mean by the hundreds. One of my buddies has got them in his bus more then once. I guess they set up a nest inside somewhere after the bus has left their home. Months later he can have some of them running around. He uses the bug bomb 2 in the coach and one in each bay. I have never used a bug bomb and the fire hazard stated above does not sound good. I also do not plan using one ever. My buddy says this cures his problem until next time. With the Comet he his gone several years at a time without any ants. When I have got them, I would use some of a terrible stinky spray in a can and spray their major outside major trails. Rare occassions spray a little inside on their trails I really hate to do this. Last resort only !!! Last year we had a major ant problem in the kitchen at home could not see any ants outside of house. I sprinkled the Comet around the base boards let side about two weeks [ probably not necessary to let sit that long ] and then push all I could under base boards. The ants were gone the first night and a year later have not came back. A pest control man told me that Comet has Boric Acid in it. I do not know this for sure. I my apartment complexes when we get a roach and ant problem I buy a product called roach proof, I been told it is also boric acid. It is blue in color I sprinkle it all around the base boards brush it the edge of the carpets, behind ref, stove, inside back corners of all cabinets, remove electrical plates and blow it in with a cooking syringe type baster. I do not clean it up. As stated about I been told they get it on their feet and track it back to their nest what happens from there I do not know. This has stopped some major roach & ant infestations inside for me. All of my ants are the piss or small red ants of Calif. The carpentar, Fire Ants, & others I know zero about. Sounds like something to have major concern for. If these products are boric acid I have been using them in my situation for 29 years now. Just a little food for thought, maybe not your situation but may help someone else. Craig C | ||
| David & Lorna Schinske (Davidschinske) (206.148.4.80)
Rating: N/A |
I've used Roach Proof (main active ingredient is Boric Acid) when we lived in FL. The duplex we lived in had those weird little roaches that look like some one put lifters on their back legs. I was told by an exterminator this was a mutation from all the pesticides. Since nothing else had worked I tried the Roach Proof. I don't think it killed them but I had no more roaches (but the guys next door suddenly had a real infestation! I tried to buy boric acid in NC as we had a few when we lived there but couldn't find either roach proof or boric acid. Usually get boric acid in the drug stores. Lorna | ||
| CoryDaneRTSIIIL (4.17.253.57) Rating: N/A |
I had an interesting ant problem with the old RV. I found these ants in the RV so I started looking for the way that they were getting in. I found it. They were walking up the power (land ) cord and would walk in through the plate to get inside the RV. I stopped the ants from coming into the RV by placing the cord in a pail of water, the cord came up from the middle of the bucket, (islanded) by the water, the ants could not get to the cord. I guess ants dont swim. I had to leave ant traps inside and in a few days they were gone. Just an interesting reminder of my attack by ants. "Imagine Your Dreams" cd | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy) (24.196.191.70)
Rating: N/A |
I had the same problem on a boat. They were coming up one of the lines. A fellow boater suggested I put a liberal dose of ground cinammon spice on the line. It worked!! Richard | ||
| RJ Long (Rjlong) (24.127.74.29)
Rating: N/A |
Richard - that's the same thing my 87 year-young mother does! Not only does it work, but her apartment always has the aroma of fresh cinnamon. . . RJ PD4106-2784 Fresno CA | ||
| jim mci-9 (209.240.198.60) Rating: N/A |
i bought 1 of those little electronic plug-in pest repellers...pluged it in the bathroom outlet..out of the way.... and it took about 3 days.... i have tried poisons of all types.... vacuumed them up....sprayed the tires, cords, cables, etc.... but the electronic thingy works... bought at lowes for less than $10....the disclamer on the package says it might not work on ants, but it did for me.... good luck...jim mci-9 | ||
| FAST FRED (67.75.106.209) Rating: N/A |
GREAT , But hows your dog doing?? FAST FRED | ||
| Johnny (67.241.166.156)
Rating: N/A |
My friend's electronic pest repellant does't seem to bother his cat. |
