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I have a problem that I've been wrestling with for a month or so....I've come up with several half-assed possible solutions, but would appreciate some outside brainstorming in case I've overlooked any obvious safer potential solution!

PROBLEM:

I have 498,763,265,001 friggin ants who decided a great nesting place would be under the frame of my cistern access lid which is cemented into my garage floor. I knew I had a problem when piles of debris were being oh so neatly created along the edge of the lid, but then I had to open the lid & had at least half of the aforementioned colony swarm up my arms & legs! I instantly came to the conclusion that peaceful-coexistence does not occupy one of the higher positions on my potential options list!


Ant powder is not even at the bottom of the list because it could easily blow into the seam between the frame & lid & fall into the cistern when I open it.

Soap & water or chemicals would kill them, but I haven't come up with a sure-fire way to guarantee that I don't contaminate my cistern & I really don't want to appear in a Baja Obituaries thread in the near future!

There's no dirt under there, since it's a solid cement roof/ceiling of the cistern which is open air space to the water below.

My #1 goal is NOT contaminating my cistern....#2 is getting rid of the friggin ants.

'k, I expect hundreds of brilliant solutions to pour in!!

OK, here is a creative solution.

1. Put 1/2 gallon of milk in the freezer

2. Bake 3 dozen of your (soon to be world) famous chocolate chip cookies....with pecans.

3. Take milk out of freezer

4. Pour milk into glass

5. Place ONE cookie 5 feet from cistern lid on garage floor

6. Get 2x4 from garage

7. Set up chair next to cookie on garage floor

8. Sit in chair eating cookies and dinking milk

9. When ants appear to eat cookie on garage floor, get 2x4 and whack them.

How soon can Addie be here? She's soooo much closer to the ground than I am!

Suggestions:

1. Teniente
2.

NEXT???

Whatever the solution..... The ants are thirsty. Perhaps you could create a diversion elsewhere. Far from your cistern. Just make sure it's moist.

An Anteater

Have you asked your water delivery guy? Bet he's seen it a gazillion times and knows exactly what to do.

1. I would seal the lid to the cistern.
Get some hydraulic cement and fill any voids along the concrete edge to smooth it so a gasket will seal.
Get some garage door-bottom gasket and use silicon caulk to adhere it to the underside of the lid.

2. Try some Boric acid mixed with honey or jam set out on wax paper around the cistern for a few days. They will disappear - you can repeat this as often as they reappear.

3. I think you can still get Diazinon in Baja. Sprinkle a little around the outside walls of the garage/house every few months.

If you know someone coming down from the U.S. who can order this stuff, it works great. Maybe you can have it delivered to La Paz???

http://www.pestmall.com/advance-granular-ant-bait.html

MAXFORCE ANT BAIT GEL

You have to get both. Some ants like the gel, some like the pellets.

You can put it several feet from the water tank. They will eventually find it, take it back to the colony. It will wipe out the entire lot of 'em

Wish we would have known earlier, could have brought a sample from our stash.

HowOdd, they already have set up nests under each of my 3 hose bibs which have soil below them, but not under the one with cement below.

Kate, he said "No problemo, they're small, they don't drink much!"

Diver, thank you for your thought-provoking response! Sealing the small gap between the cement & the lid frame is a good idea. But the lid & frame have a tight fit, so there is no room for a gasket between the lid & frame. As is, I have to pull it straight up or it binds & hangs up! And sealing the lid into the frame itself is not a viable option since I have an auto-shutoff float device that cuts power to my water pressure holding tank pump when the water reaches a certain level so I don't burn out the pump by running out of water. I open the cistern once a month & take the float device out & lay it on it's side so I can still use the remaining 1,000 or so liters of water, while I wait for water delivery.

The problem I have with any of the bait-type poisons is....I have this mental image HoseA coming back to the nest with a mouthful of poison bait & in the ensuing mass exodus of everyone rushing out to bring home the bacon, there'd be a lot of crashes with HoseB, C, D, E, F, G, etc., on their return trip & the little buggers would spit out their mouthful to yell, "Hey! Watch where you're going!" In the ensuing fistfights, all the mouths full of poison would fall into my water supply.
I could do a more semi-permanent seal if I could rig up an exterior gauge to the float device....like a car's gas gauge!

Yes, Diazinon is available here & it's great! I do use a multi-critter spray periodically outside, but I think the recent rains have flushed these guys up out of the ground & caused then to look for a drier abode while still having access to a water source.

BigWooo, see fistfight reference above!

Suggestions:

1. Teniente
2. HowOdd
3. noproblemo
4. Kate
5. Diver (you started another possibility brewing!)
6. BigWooo

Teniente, I apologize for having struck your idea so fast....it's starting to look like the least toxic idea!!


NEXT???

A wealth of information from the Structural Pest Control Industry...


http://urban.cmsdev.ucr.edu/docs/Arg...20the%20So.pdf

http://www.pestboard.ca.gov/howdoi/r...impact_rpt.pdf

Have been using a product for a number of years... Demon.. create a barrier around the "entrance" to the water... do not apply on or into water.. against the label... (my son is doing the house as I type, back pack sprayer.. with a 4' foot wide sprayer tip for the outside, and a single tip for inside..

Leaver 6"-12" from the opening with no drift towards the opening to insure you sleep well ... and spray back from that... will make a barrier .. continue around your entire home.. and your walls 3-4', around your windows, doors, cracks and crevices ... will give some degree of relief ..

Good for around 3 months for sure.. maybe 4... in the summer.. heavy rains, you will know

This and other materials discussed are quite effective in Phoenix.. and other desert areas of AZ and CA

Hope it helps.. they can make life a little difficult at times... they don't share well....

LD 50 works out to 201.6 pounds you would have to eat before it might kill ...

Double tough on invertebrates ... soft on mammals... but, of course use common sense, put your critters inside until it has dried... follow the instructions which will come with the product...

Must say, Loyds Pest Control in San Diego is a class act.... what ever they are using is a very safe and effective material...

hey Legs, just want to clarify/be sure here-

I have 498,763,265,001 friggin ants who decided a great nesting place would be under the frame of my cistern access lid which is cemented into my garage floor.


So... when the lid to the cistern is in place, the ants are not getting into the cistern. However, they have found a crack in the cement and are nesting below the concrete right next to the cistern lid. Is that about right?



If so, the I'd suggest a properly timed Bait Station! that's the only real way to get the bait/poison into the colony to kill the colony. I've used the little RAID or other brand poison baits with good success.

I understand your concern for not wanting any of the yuckies into the water. If you can time the bait placements to right after you do the once-a-month water level thing, then you are good to go!

Right after you do the water level thing, put out the ant bait traps. They work fairly quickly...within a few days. Before you open the cistern the next time, vacuum or clean out all the debris (aka possible dead ants) from the edge of the lid.


You can also use those bait traps for under the hose bibs. I used them this last summer outside in the pepper patch. Just threw a couple out there and it seemed to keep the bulk of the ants under control. I noticed a couple ant nests early on in the season and put a bait station near where they were, and it really seemed to help. Did not use any other sprays and within a few days, I did not see the ants crawling around the pepper patch.

good luck~

Leggz......

Addie, Mollie and Haley the Lab are all packed and ready. Just say the word and they will be on the ABC bus to your place!!!!!!

Nutz.....close enough! I sincerely doubt the the seal of the lid inside the frame is airtight....I imagine that the ants can & do make it into the interior of the cistern itself.

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

Teniente.....THE WORD!!
Just one question.....how will I recognize them at the bus depot?

I actually thought about that Marty.....but I don't want to fuse the lid to the frame as worst case scenario or bubble all the paint off as best case!

Legz - I have been busy and spent very little time online these past few days so this is my first look at your problem. To better assist you it would help to understand exactly where the ants are going, in both directions. Ants don't nest in cement and they need food to eat. Where is the dirt that they call home and where are they getting their food from? With those two answers I believe that I can give you some good advice based on my years of ant annihilation...

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

Teniente.....THE WORD!!
Just one question.....how will I recognize them at the bus depot?

Just look for the big, goofy looking yellow dog....oh, and all three of them will be hungry!!!!!

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Legz - I have been busy and spent very little time online these past few days so this is my first look at your problem. To better assist you it would help to understand exactly where the ants are going, in both directions. Ants don't nest in cement and they need food to eat. Where is the dirt that they call home and where are they getting their food from? With those two answers I believe that I can give you some good advice based on my years of ant annihilation...

When I lift the metal cistern lid, they SWARM up from both the inside frame (between lid & frame) & outside (between outer edge of frame & concrete). Since cistern is under my garage floor (actually, ceiling of cistern IS part of my garage floor!) it's thick well-reinforced cement & there is NO dirt under the area.....just water. And they are not trailing in & out at all hours.....i.e., they're not hauling barrels of water back to the hacienda from the creek! They have hauled debris out, like they do when making a nest in dirt....but it looks like what they've evacuated is a little tracked/blown-in dirt & predominantly little bits of rust from the frame.

The only possible food source I've provided out in the garage is a 50-gallon garbage can of dry dog food, but it sits 3' off the floor & it has a snap lock lid....I've used it for several years & never ever had ants get in there....even when it sat on the floor! Yes, they could come in under the door to the kitchen....but I keep a line of ant powder across the top of the step where it hits the wall & along the bottom edges of the door jamb. No ants in kitchen.

I just tiptoed out & looked.....nary an ant in sight!! Nobody is going back & forth! But when I open the lid, most of the 498,763,265,001 friggin ants will come swarming out, up my arms & legs....just trust me on that part....I'm not up for another reenactment right now!

Maybe these are mutant Sur cement-dwelling ants!!

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

I just tiptoed out & looked.....nary an ant in sight!! Nobody is going back & forth! But when I open the lid, most of the 498,763,265,001 friggin ants will come swarming out, up my arms & legs....just trust me on that part....I'm not up for another reenactment right now!

Sorry but we will need a video of the ants doing exactly that to be able to give you a proper diagnosis / treatment...