please teach me the ways of in car ant killing, oh masters of the universe

so I found out tonight my daughter had spilled jelly beans under her car seat while her and my wife were on vacation this week.

found this out by following the ant trail.

so I spent topnight placing a handful of ant traps, pulling the seats, vacuuming, etc. not what I had planned to do....

the only other time ive ever had an ant infested car, I tried sevendust, bug bombs, etc. wound up gutting the entire interior and replacing it ALL.

I REALLY don't want to do that with an 02 Subaru wagon. not my idea of a good time, or investment.

assuming the ant traps don't work (hopefully I caught them early enough), what are my options? has to be kid safe, as my 5 year old will get into anything. and everything. with a side serving of wtf is that???

so, educate me, grm faithful.

Once the food is gone they should leave on their own I would think.

Clean it, and then use Raid. They don't hurt anything so if it takes them a few days to disappear it isn't like having hornets in there. Unless fire ants. Then... lock some hungry Aardvarks in there and hope for the best.

Keep the kid out of the garage for a while, use a borax based ant poison. They take it to their colony and it kills all of them.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Then... lock some hungry Aardvarks in there and hope for the best.

nominated for say what

and thanks for the laugh. needed that tonight.

and just what I raid? I don't think ive ever heard of it. is it kid safe?

bgkast wrote: Once the food is gone they should leave on their own I would think.

They will.

I had a whole colony living in the e21 when I bought it. Couldn't find where they were (behind a trim panel or something).

Thought they would leave once the car was cleaned out, but I found that they were just going down the wheel to the ground, finding food, and coming back. I mean, if you ran out of food at your house, would you just move out? No, you'd just go get some food someplace else and bring it home

I had some ant bait traps for my house (the ones you put outside around the foundation). Put one in there. They flocked to it like a gourmet meal. 2 days later, there was no sign of any ants, anywhere. I'm sure I'll find hundreds of tiny carcasses when I rip the interior apart...

highly recommend. Plus it doesn't smell up the car like raid will.

I would do the safest way possible. First, remove the food source, which you have. Second, vacuum the whole car followed by a carpet shampoo if necessary. I would try and avoid putting any toxic chemicals in the car as it's a small enclosed space and those chemicals will be in there for a while. You do not want your family (or yourself) breathing that nasty stuff. Ants leave a trail for other ants to follow so try parking in a different spot also. Simple things can go a long way here.

Baby powder.

I dont have any ants living in a car but I do have an uncle living in a van, down by the river.

I found something that works really great.

It is called TERRO ant killer.

It really works well. It gets rid of 99.9% of them.

iceracer wrote: I found something that works really great. It is called TERRO ant killer. It really works well. It gets rid of 99.9% of them.

This. They're liquid-filled traps. I've seen ants ignore every other type of trap, but these they can't seem to resist.

They love the liquid traps for cars

The thing that just kills every type of ants that I have ever seen is ANDRO. I don't know whats in it, but its like the ants just disappear.

Dusterbd13 wrote: the only other time ive ever had an ant infested car, I tried sevendust, bug bombs, etc. wound up gutting the entire interior and replacing it ALL.

BORAX and sugar. 1 tbsp borax to 8 tbsp sugar. You can soak cotton ball in the mix when making it, and lay them around or just put out the dish.

Used it at home and at work to del with infestations.

If you want a "non-chemical"/poison route, dawn and water wash away the ants' trail/scent. Powdered sugar and baking soda mixed if you want a trap. Ants can't tell the sugar from the soda take both back to the nest, and die from eating the baking soda. Works well for the small/sugar ants

iceracer wrote: I found something that works really great. It is called TERRO ant killer. It really works well. It gets rid of 99.9% of them.

I just looked, and those are the ones that I mentioned above in my previous post. TERRO - go with it.

beans wrote:

Dusterbd13 wrote: the only other time ive ever had an ant infested car, I tried sevendust, bug bombs, etc. wound up gutting the entire interior and replacing it ALL.

Sevendust will only work to drive ants away if they're hipster ants.