The Quite Possibly Never-Ending War On Ants...

Almost a year ago, in my ant-conquering arrogance, I made a crazy statement about almost being ready to declare victory. I hereby officially retract that grotesquely optimistic statement.

However...that is not to say that the RTV strategy is without value. Quite the contrary. Before about a year ago, our routine reaction to discovering ants was to break out the weapons of mass ant destruction (chemical weapons, that is) and madly spray them over anything that crawled within a 150 foot (or so) radius of our home. Most commonly this approach would immediately reduce the ant numbers, but not drive them completely away.

The new strategy, now being employed for about a year, is much different. No weapons of mass ant destruction are involved – just some ordinary RTV (self-curing silicone rubber, commonly sold in caulking tubes). I simply follow the ants (generally in the kitchen) back to whatever hole they're entering from, and caulk it. After that, for somewhere between 10 minutes and 2 weeks, we are ant-free – completely, totally, and utterly ant-free. And this despite the lack of chemical warfare on the ant nests outside.

This morning was quite typical. We noticed a few ants running around on our kitchen island – these were “explorers”, looking for some tasty treat. I gave them one – a dish of sugar water. Three hours later, there was a well-defined ant trail between the dish of sugar water and their entry point, which was a crack between the baseboard and the wall. I caulked the crack and cleaned up all the ants I could see with a paper towel. I knew from experience what would happen next – you can see it in the photo above.

First, the RTV caulking acts like some kind of repulsion shield to the ants – they won't touch it. That's the blue-circled area in the photo. Second, they'd start congregating in total confusion nearby the old entry point. I think what's going on there is that more and more ants show up, each laying down a pheremone trail, and that just attracts other ants all the more. About an hour after I caulked the crack, I took the photo above. In another couple hours, there will be another congregation – the more far-ranging explorers trying to get back to the nest.

So now we're ant-free once more. But I have no idea how long it will be until they pop up somewhere else...