Ants plus cat equals creepy, crawly danger

April 10, 2007 12:14 AM

Once again, our apartment has ants. The problem? This year we also have a cat. There's tons of information out there (both on the internet in general and ask metafilter in particular) but some of it is contridictory, and much of it doesn't mention danger to pets. So, what have you used to rid yourself of the little beasts without endangering your furry friends?

In previous years, when the ants have popped up, we cleaned the kitchen really well, put out the little plastic traps, and sprayed all the baseboards and common trails with the most noxious spray we could find. More than anything, we found that once we sprayed all the places they were getting in through, the problem stopped. Of course, little Imogene makes that option impossible.

Adding to the fun is that they seem to love her cat food. We've placed her bowl inside of a larger, shallow dish filled with water. This drowns the fuckers, but every piece she kicks out gets swarmed.

From scanning the threads here and Googling, I've found popular suggestions for Terro (which contains borax), straight borax, cinnamon, black pepper, and diatomaceous earth.

Borax, and Terro in particular, seem promising, but honestly, I can't tell if it's safe or not. This is the best I could find:

Borax is readily absorbed and could cause gastrointestinal irritation and salivation. Severe cases (extremely rare as the concentrations in these products are very low and therefore monster amounts would need to be ingested) would cause shaking, shivering, tremors, drowsiness, excessive thirst and in theory coma, renal impairment and convulsions. In practice these are not really a problem.

Pet owners, what has worked for you? Did your feline find Terro delicious? How, exactly, does one apply straight borax? If she licks it off herself, is that an issue. Clearly, I'm boggled.

posted by mostlymartha to Pets & Animals (21 answers total)

In my (admittedly few) attempts to deal with ants, I've interrupted their trails with baking soda at the place where they're getting in, and vacuumed the portion of the trail that was already indoors. This has served me pretty well, and I'd be pretty surprised if baking soda hurt your cat.
posted by crinklebat at 12:26 AM on April 10, 2007

I had a cat in the house when I used Terro... I just shoved it underneath the crevice of a cupboard where the cat couldn't get at it. For a while though, it may seem as though there are MORE ants in your house, but before you know it, they'll be dead. The other thing I did was that I used the Terro outside too.
posted by perpetualstroll at 12:29 AM on April 10, 2007

Terro works wonders and (should be) harmless to the cat. our cats have shown no interest in getting into the Terro at all, but YMMV.
posted by mmoncur at 12:35 AM on April 10, 2007

A friend of mine swore by his clever (animal safe) ant control technique: He traced the ants to the place where they appeared to be entering his apartment. Then, he placed an enormous supply of honey which only the ants could eat (via small holes on the top).

The idea was that the ants lives would be spared, would be attracted only to the honey, would have an infinite supply of food and would ignore his tasty kitchen treats. Well, it worked, but it really creeped the hell out of his girlfriend who was so afraid to the point that she believed that one day the ants would takeover the city and start driving cars on the freeway.

He switched to Terro, strategically placed behind big things like refrigerators.

Moral of the story: use Terro strategically placed behind big things like refrigerators. Unless you think that ants driving cars is awesome.
posted by |n$eCur3 at 12:59 AM on April 10, 2007

Why not simply caulk the places where the ants are getting into your home?

Also, if you're spraying raid on the ants and then cleaning it up it shouldn't be to bad, the only thing you should have to worry about is immediately throwing away any food that gets sprayed. Most bug killers smell awful and animals shouldn't be attracted to them.
posted by Citizen Premier at 1:04 AM on April 10, 2007

I used the Combat slow kill ant cups. It takes about a week to kill the nest. Apparently it the same stuff used in the Cat/Dog flea treatments. You can't spray regular poison, since you want the ants to carry the poison back to the nest/queen.

Also since it's contained in the ant cup it should be safe for cats/dogs.
posted by jeblis at 1:39 AM on April 10, 2007

Why not simply caulk the places where the ants are getting into your home?

1. Because some places are near-impossible to get to without removing cabinetry.
2. Because unless you live in a glass-walled building, it's going to be impossible to caulk up every single possible opening large enough for ants to get through.
3. Because they'll just eat their way through the wood anyway.

Terro or Borax, placed inside of cabinets or other areas where your pets don't go. The power lies in the fact that it doesn't kill them right away. You want them to take it back home, deep inside their lair, then kill them.

Also, sprinkle a bag or two around the perimeter of your building (the whole building). Terro bags come in these convenient "shake out" designs so you can just open it up, turn it upside down and walk around gently shaking it out.

Up here in Maine, we get some fearsome inch-long carpenter ants. I once trapped one under a glass and waited for it to die, just out of scientific curiosity. Damn thing took more than a month to finally expire. You have to kill them, you can't just hope that blocking up their entry points will make them frustrated enough to go away.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:04 AM on April 10, 2007

Yes, the ants are a pain. I've dealt with them, too, and never very successfully, so my advice here would be rather... ineffectual.

But try not to kill -all- the ants; just the ones in the house. And keep them from coming back in. Ants eat flea larvae, after all. It's the most natural form of flea prevention there is!
posted by po at 3:16 AM on April 10, 2007

Terro. We have two cats and we use it - I think it's been about a week and the ant population here has declined in drastic fashion. As people say above, just put them someplace the kitteh doesn't go. Secondarily, we put some cinnamon out at the apparent kitchen-sink entry point, and that seemed to stymie, if not eliminate them. I have also heard that spraying their trails with Windex makes it so the one ant can't get back and the other ants can't find him.
posted by Medieval Maven at 4:11 AM on April 10, 2007

I use borax. Usually there are cracks in the area where the ants are entering. I buy the borax (powdered) in a plastic bottle and apply it directly into the cracks, so most of it would be inaccessible to cats. When I had a cat, no problems with this method.
posted by yohko at 4:46 AM on April 10, 2007

Ditto Terro.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:48 AM on April 10, 2007

Echoing everyone else. Have cat, used Terro (thanks previous AskMes, it works better than borax alone ever did), put it at the ant points of entry. Cat never cares about it one way or the other. I'll speculate that ants are much more drawn to sweet things than cats are, hence the lack of problem.
posted by gnomeloaf at 6:07 AM on April 10, 2007

One point that's in your favour is that cats hate the smell of ants. Formic acid, which ants sweat, has a noxious vingary smell that cats don't like at all. So, cats will usually avoid anything to do with ants.

Borax or Terro seems to smell great to ants, but (my) cats don't seem to care about it much either. Just make sure they don't walk in powder or liquid residue and injest it while cleaning.
posted by bonehead at 6:33 AM on April 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

I swear by D-Limonene. It's made from the compressed rinds of citrus fruits like lemons and oranges. It's safe for pets and safe for kids. In addition to being a potent insecticide, it's also a pretty good cleaner (due to its properties as a solvent).
posted by DWRoelands at 6:35 AM on April 10, 2007

I have cats and for me the easiest solution was those little black ant slaughterhouses that are filled with two types of ant food and are impossible for cats to get in. Keep an eye on them if you use them though, just to make sure the cats aren't showing undo interest.
posted by drezdn at 6:40 AM on April 10, 2007

I just had some ants crawling in underneath my back door, where my neighbor's dog can often be found. I ended up using this peppermint oil based product (which I picked up from my local food coop) and it worked great. My apartment was especially minty-fresh for a few days, but the ants are gone and the dog is a-okay.

Apparently, another approach you can take is to spread citrus oil where you see ants crawling. It's acidic enough that the ants won't come back and won't peak the interest of your pets. The minty-fresh business was a bit more exciting though, I think.
posted by lastyearsfad at 6:46 AM on April 10, 2007

I've had great success repelling them with cucumber peels laid out in the relevant places. It's worked so well I can't believe nobody's mentioned it here yet. The linked page also suggests mint, which I think I might've tried, but cucumber peels are what stand out in my mind as the winner.

I once trapped one under a glass and waited for it to die, just out of scientific curiosity.

Yikes, I thought I was the only one with that particular brand of sadism "scientific curiousity."
posted by kmennie at 7:44 AM on April 10, 2007

That peppermint might be a fun experiment. I have one cat who gets high on the smell of peppermint oil. So if you see your kitty stoned and staring at its paws wherever you've sprayed that stuff, you'll know why.

We have ants every summer, and every summer we go to the nest outside and sprinkle diazinon.

There are reports that this is fatal to the animals around, but I haven't observed it. If you're worried, there are alternatives.
posted by lysdexic at 8:33 AM on April 10, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks so much! Sounds like Terro (effectiveness without much cat interest is what I'm looking for) may be the way to go, possibly with a side of citrus or cinnamon. The kitteh typically loves anything fragrant (she even thought the wretched ant spray smell very interesting) and has been known to go crazy in the presence of veg peelings (cucumber included) so I suspect that may provide as much amusement as cure.

I wish I could caulk up there entry points, but as near as we can tell, they just slip in through miniscule spaces between the floor and the baseboards. Also, I don't think my landlord would appreciate me and a caulk gun near her wood floors.

I also wish I could sprinkle the stuff around the perimeter, but in my urban apartment, that would mean getting around the whole block, not to mention climbing fences to get to the adjacent parking areas, so that sounds unreasonable.
posted by mostlymartha at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2007

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but I've found cayenne pepper works rather well and the kitties don't want anything to do with it.
posted by teleri025 at 5:00 PM on April 10, 2007

Talc (and I found Cornflour (but not regular flour) does the trick too) is really effective for ant barricades because it doesn't evaporate. Stupid ants - I hate them so!! Maybe put a big ring of it around Kitties pig trough :)
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 3:21 AM on August 27, 2007