Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Actually you can't, but understanding the enemy will help keep them out of your house and perhaps off your property. The small argentinian ant you're well familiar with if you live in California is different from most ant situations. Most ants will fight with other similar type ant colonies, they live with one queen to a nest, and they'll often avoid repopulating a dead nest. Not these guys. Most of them came from a single colony and so have the genetic marker that makes them think they're all from the same nest/colony. Multiple queens will inhabit a nest. And they have no problems with moving right back into a dead nest. So the whole concept of 'killing the queen' or being rid of them is out the window. In fact, once the queen is dead they'll go through a process of converting a hatchling to a new queen. They also maintain a scent trail that will last for many years, right into your kitchen, bathroom or other areas where they have previously found food/water and shelter from extreme weather. They are very fond of driveways, crowns in the road and large concrete spans where they can be protected and avoid drowning in the rain. When its hot out, your air conditioned house is a great place to be. This is a war of attrition, but I've 'won' that war on many properties. First thing you need to do is get rid of excess food and water sources outside. I've seen them eat everything from fallen fruit to dog poop. Next when you see a line of ants, follow that trail to the furthest place away from your house you can locate and put one of these baits down. Set it on the ground, pull out the stakes and press the top. Don't try to do this while you're holding it unless you like getting it on your hands. Cover it with something to keep the sun off, unless its already in a shady place. Stake it if necessary. Monitor each one you put out to see if the ants are still feeding on it, its empty, or its dried out. Keep replacing until you stop seeing the ants. I've tried every bait I could buy and frankly this is the only one they take to. They've largely ignored everything else. They certainly like proteins but aren't interested in protein baits. I sometimes will put a little bit of pet food on top of the white crown, it does draw more ants in but they'll take the terro while they're there. This is basically sugar, water and boric acid. The boric acid acts as a drying agent but it takes time to kill the ant. So it can bring it back to the nest and feed it to the queen and the ant larvae. Given enough of it, you will kill the nest, but as described above it'll be repopulated. I restrict using this to within about 15' of my house. If you have lots of time, money and persistence you can drive them to the property boundaries. In the fall just before the real rain starts (hoping to see that again soon after 4 years of drought) get one of those water hose-screw-on insecticides that kills ants and spray all around your foundation for a few feet away from the house and a foot or so up the side of the house. Spray the edges of all concrete including big cracks and seams. In the spring once the rain is over but before the serious heat kicks in, do that spraying again. I have a 2500 square foot house on 1/2 acre and this costs me about $50-75 a year for Terro and the spray. If they get into your house, resist the urge to vacuum them up. Remove the food/water they were interested in and put a Terro bait at the nearest point of entry you can find. I actually use these outdoor ones instead of the indoor ones. Simpler and less messy, and they hold more. Let them continue eating the bait until they're gone...which might take a week or more. You'll see a pattern of lots of regular looking ants, then when those are all gone from the nest you'll see some burlier versions, about 1.5x the size and thicker. These are the queens/nests guards who have come in search of food because the workers are gone. You might even see the queen escorted to the food source, she'll be a lot bigger. Then you'll see really small ones, these are the newly hatched and the last ditch effort to get food for the nest. Our objective here is to reduce the population and make the area immediately around your house unfriendly, and to prevent them from entering your house. When it rains they'll migrate to a dry warm place with food. When the real heat comes out and things dry up, they look for cooler surroundings with a water/food source. After a few years of keeping them out, their scent trails that keep leading them into the house will no longer be effective and the job gets easier. After a few years I've found that they decide that my neighbors are less trouble than I am.