Ants

[circlew]

Speaking of scorpions

In July 1972, my mom, sister and I spent the night at the Royal Inn of Needles, CA. We went into the room we were assigned, and my mom soon went into the bathroom. She promptly came back out, and said we weren't staying in that room because there was a scorpion in the tub. We went to the office, and they gave us another room on the other side. We inspected that one, and it luckily was free of any such pests.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Earwigs, exactly!  Thank you, Joe.  I have not seen one in a long time, but am going to get some of those granules that I sprinkled around the house years ago and give the premises another treatment.

 

[sudsmaster]

The ants in California are known as Argentine ants. Supposedly because they were accidentally imported on produce or plants from South America.

These ants are a bit unusual because their nests can have multiple queens, and I've seen opinions that in fact the Argentine ants in California are part of a vast continuous multi-queen nest from one end of the state to another. That's why it's impossible to eliminate these ants permanently. The best one can do is just keep them at bay for a while. Foundation perimeter ant poison seems to work best.

 

[tomturbomatic]

That's frightening; like something out of a sci-fi story.

 

[sudsmaster]

BTW, the Argentine ants are those little brown ones. Supposedly they give off an unusual odor (greasy?) when crushed, but I've never detected it.

I was in Home Depot yesterday and saw they have the good Combat granules with Hydromethylnon. I'll probably go back to replenish my supply.

On a slightly unrelated note... we have a mouse/rat problem here. Perhaps because home and condo owners have let the ivy grow out of control on fences. Plus there's a huge storm drain near my property on the other side of a fence.

In the past I've had good results with dCon mouse/rat bait, the stuff with a Warfarin analog called Brodifacoum. But for the past few years California has banned it, due to concerns residual poison would affect other wildlife. The problem is the substitute, Bromethalin. a neurotoxin, seems relatively ineffective, and a danger to pets because there is no known antidote. I note also that even that one has been discontinued, replaced with Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol, which rodents cannot handle, but is relatively non-toxic to humans. I suppose eventually I'll have to try the D3 variety as my supply of the "good stuff" runs out.

I understand the effective anti-coagulant type baits are still available to licensed pest control persons.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread but it's somewhat related.

 

[iowabear]

Outdoor chipmunks are a real problem around my place (sorry Alvin fans, but in real life they are just rats with racing stripes.)

 

I keep their numbers under control with common rat snap traps.  In some past years there have been indoor/outdoor cats that patrolled and kept them in check without effort on my part.