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Shelbyville, Tennessee ~ Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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My Unwanted Squatters!
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008, at 11:36 PM<< Previous | Read comments | Respond | Email link | Next >>
Pardon if the spelling is wrong on Squatters, but my family moved in to a new house recently. We do not park in the garage(why would we do that?), but we do go in and out of the house through the garage. I am telling you this because we never use our front door. I recently went out my front door to find that a bird has made a nest just above it on the brick ledge. Now I am definitely not known to be an animal lover, but I am far from being an animal hater. What should I do with my bird friend? Is there a way to move the nest with out harming the bird? Am I better off just taking the broom to the nest? Any advice...
My other uninvited guest is a colony of ants that has built the taj mahal (again with the spelling) of ant hills next to my sidewalk. How should I get rid of my little friends? I do not want stir them up thereby sending them in to the house. Any suggestions? Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
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If you're not up for using traps or a pest control service - cinnamon works well to get rid of ants.
As for the bird's nest, if you don't use the door, I would just leave it there. Of course, I would be known as an animal lover.
If you're not up for using traps or a pest control service - cinnamon works well to get rid of ants.
As for the bird's nest, if you don't use the door, I would just leave it there. Of course, I would be known as an animal lover.
If the ant hill is huge, you might have fire ants. They aren't the big red ants, like so many people think. They are a little bigger than a typical house ant, but not as big as the ones with the pinchers you can see. If you diturb the nest, they come out in swarms. Be careful! We have been overrun.
I do not like using chemicals and prefer natural solutions, but nothing we tried worked. We got some stuff at the Co-op...I'll have to look at the name. We treated 8 hills this past weekend.
The birds will leave the nest if you disturb it. I was trying to be all nice and left a nest near my stove vent. Now I have to fight them every year and have been putting up stuff to make it a not so pleasing place to build.
As soon as the first brood is gone, removing the nest will be no big issue. They might try again, but you can discourage them.
Until recently, I did not know fire ants were here, but Jacks4me is 100% right about being careful. They have a tendency to swarm ferociously and have been known to kill small animals in Mississippi.
While I prefer to live and let live, these are one species of ant that I would take VERY seriously. While I lived in Mississippi, they were a continuous challenge and if I find them on our property, I will do everything I can to eradicate them.
If the nest has eggs in it I leave it alone. If the nest is empty I will move it from its location. Our local house wrens can be quite persistent and love the pretty hanging flower baskets we put our. This year they found a new spot - My parents mailbox. I have removed 3 nest so far this year.
Try giving them a more pleasant alternative nearby.
Anything that fits their species would do but you *could* get a really nice birdhouse and take their picture with the new place and its label "We got our house from Kenneth Parker!"
WOW I have never heard of using cinnamon...How would you go about using it ?? What about the little ants that come in around your kitchen window and sink area ?? Would cinnamon work also for that too. What about cinnamon sticks??...I too would just wait for the babbies to leave the nest and then remove the nest..I too am a animal lover..A bird house is a great thing to have also..
rebelrose, I heard about using the cinnamon from a friend of mine after moving into an apartment that had ants in the kitchen (I wanted to use something that wouldn't harm my pets). I used ground cinnamon and it worked really well. I also used it on the outside part of the doorframe for that particular apartment and didn't have a problem afterwards. I think that ant traps work much better, but the cinnamon was a nice pet-friendly alternative.
TO CHASE AWAY ANTS, LAY A DRYER SHEET OF BOUNCE NEAR THEM.
Lots of good ideas. Thanks for the advice. Keep it coming. I did think about the bird house idea, after all like quantumcat said I am in the business of finding homes for people (living things). I have not checked on the egg situation, but I would not disturb it if there are eggs.
As for the ants I never heard of the cinnamon either. I am afraid they may be fire ants and with two curious little boys I would like to get rid of them all together.
Will the cinnamon just chase them away or does it somehow kill them? I have tried some stuff for household ants for them to eat, but I am not sure how effective it will be. What about the granules that you broadcast in the yard? When is it safe to knock down the mound?
Read the directions and follow them exactly. Our mounds were dead in 3 days. I have dug them out until I didn't see anymore tunnels and then filled them up with horse manure. I don't really know if that's a good idea, but I wanted to fill the holes with something that they might not like to use to build again.
I've heard cucumbers work well as ant repellent,too.
I think the idea behind all this is that insects perceive and communicate via scent.
Give them a misleading odor and it's like us trying to make our way in a crowded disco with 40 different kinds of noise and no illumination except for strobe lights.
Thanks to everyone ...My mom just built a new home in Willamsburg Va. this past summer.A week ago she woke up and saw these tiny ants all around her sink and has been very up-set with it..Her house is so clean you can eat off her floors..She also did not want to call a bug man because she does not like using chemicals either. I have now passed all these things to her...this is great and Thanks again..
Pour gasoline on both and they will both go away.
I think with fire ants, the best thing we should do is destroy them, lest they go to the neighbors house. We tried just running them off and ended up with twice as many mounds. We found and treated 4 more monster mounds in the pasture. My 3 year old colt was running and bucking like crazy Friday evening. He may have gotten in them because one of the mounds had been recently disturbed and they were EVERYWHERE.
I'm grateful for all the ant advice.
Maybe now we won't have to worry about our homes enduring the sort of attacks Charlton Heston fought in "The Naked Jungle."
Fire ants sound as bad as the marabunta.