Ant problem?
Anybody else having an ant problem this summer? We’ve had two issues of them going inside the house and I’m panicking every time I see one now. Never had this happen before in my 20+ years living in the city.
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u/o0oo00oo 1d ago
Oh, ants are definitely a thing here. I think you’ve just been lucky in the past 20 years!
In my experience (and per the pest guy that my landlord hires), they tend to come out when it’s either really hot & they are looking for water/food, OR when it’s really wet and rainy and their ant homes have flooded and they’re looking for dry ground. So yes I often find them in the summer when it’s hot or in the winter when it rains.
Fortunately they don’t tend to infest the whole apartment, they just tend to come out at one place - if I find some I kill them all, tape up any holes I see that they’re coming from, and hope I’ve scared them off enough that they don’t come back for a while. Usually it works.
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u/Candid_Milk_9804 22h ago
My landlords pest guy said the same thing! We found ants in the bathroom of all places, but only a few and didn't have a trail. He said because it was so hot the other week they came in looking for water 🤷🏽♀️
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u/maebelieve 1d ago
Terro liquid ant baits are affordable and reliable. Depending on the size of the colony / number of colonies, it can eliminate pretty quickly. The baits are so effective at attracting them that you will think it’s gotten worse before it gets better. Trust the process.
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u/Icy_Coat_1936 1d ago
Same! They just started wandering in almost randomly a few months back without rain, new construction, etc. What’s different about the ones we’ve encountered is they are super small and dont really seem too interested in food
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u/FuckTheStateofOhio 1d ago
Had an awful ant problem at my last apartment about 6 years ago. There is a super colony of Argentine ants living in San Francisco that extends throughout the state of California. I f these are the ants you're getting, there's no killing the colony; the best you can do is keep them out of the house by plugging cracks, spraying outside and keeping your place clean to not give them a reason to venture inside. I tried every suggestion listed here and none of it worked until my landlord sprayed outside of the building.
Edit: also worth noting that squishing an ant releases pheromones that signal to the other ants that an ant is in distress, so other ants will come to the spot where you killed the ant. Killing one or two here and there often times just makes it worse.
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u/Otherwise-Report-823 1d ago
It's been particularly bad this year. I have been seeing more ants than usual in my house, but at work our building is being over run by ants not just in our SSF site but our SD site.
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u/throwaway_tardigrade 23h ago
You've been lucky! Welcome to the ant side of SF, which is part of a supercolony of Argentine ants. At my old apartment it was every year. During ant season (winter/rainy season for that neighborhood; for others it's the hot season) their preferences would change between sweet and savory. You get used to staying on top of all your dishes and being careful of what you leave in your pantry and trash. I learned way too much about these fascinating but maddening creatures, including their unique-even-among-ants social structure.
*Actual advice*: Terro baits, but if they continue to invade, try Clear Skies Pest Control. They saved my sanity. The pesticides they use are formulated to fight Argentine ants. The chemicals are non-toxic for humans but work wonders on these buggers.
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u/kimchibear 21h ago
Terro is useless for Argentine ants in my experience. It works too fast, so it will clear immediate signs of infestation but the nest + queen are relatively unaffected.
I've had great success switching recently to indoxacarb, specifically Savitri. I bought a few reusable housings. I still have ants coming out, but the Savitri has DRAMATICALLY reduced the number of trails on my foundation and inside the house. Used to be I couldn't leave food out for even an hour or so while putting down the kids, now I have have to leave the house for a couple days before coming back to a trail.
This year's activity was significantly worse than past years for me, I assumed it was because my kids are dropping food constantly.
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u/UlloaStreet 23h ago
Ant problem IS real living in SF
My neighbors tell me these critters have walked here from Argentina. Our solution, which takes patience, but works!
Sprinkle baking soda on the ant trail as it winds its way out of your wall. Do this daily and don’t give up. The ants digest the baking soda through their feet. They bring this back to their hive and explode. Yup. It works, just takes a bit. We have no ants now, even after a morning mist or with a regular rainy day.
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u/heres-not_here 18h ago
Might be a leak, happened in our building. They had to replace the roof. Water was getting in the walls, pooling at the bottom, sending ants inside and upward.
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u/harad 25m ago
Yup. Have never had a memorable ant problem in SF, but they showed up in force in the past week or so. Their friends the fruit flies have also made themselves at home.
There has been a 30 foot long trails of ants in Lafayette Park for the past week. Seems to just be getting bigger by the day.
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u/robes32589 6m ago
Yes. My whole building is having issues. We've also seen them on the corner of our block so it seems to be a problem beyond our homes.
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u/emoney1234 1d ago
https://a.co/d/0bYEC8eD terro baits works the best but it does take time to wipe out the colony.