Got ants?
Use less-toxic products to control ants. Not only are they safer for your home and family, but for the environment as well. Common household pesticides show up in Bay Area creeks, sometimes at levels that can harm sensitive aquatic life. Even applied according to label directions, conventional pesticides may wash into the gutter and down a storm drain where the water flows untreated directly into local creeks and into the San Francisco Bay. |
 |
 |
Here are some general tips on using less-toxic products around your home:
|
|
|
Ant baits contain a pesticide mixed with an attractive food substance. Ants take small quantities of bait back to their nest to share with their nest mates. In this way the entire nest can sometimes be eliminated. Ant baits are best used inside your home.
- Use baits with boric acid, hydramethylnon, fipronil, or arsenic as an active ingredient.
- Place the bait in the path of the ants.
- Keep several different baits on hand because ants change their food preferences frequently. If one bait is not working, try another. Wait at least a day to see if they take the bait.
- Baits may take several weeks to kill the ants. At first you may see more ants coming to the bait, but after a few days to a week you should see a significant reduction.
- When the ants are gone, remove the bait and return it to its original container. Place the container in a plastic bag and seal it to use again
|
Back to top.
|
|
|
Use diatomaceous earth (DE) in wall voids and cracks before they are sealed. Use a hand duster to apply DE and wear a dust mask and goggles. DE has little toxicity to humans or pets, but kills insects by absorbing their outer waxy coating, causing dehydration and death. |
Back to top.
|
|
|
Here are some ant control tips we have compiled through suggestions from other sources. We DO NOT guarantee the effectiveness of these ideas, but it could certainly be worthwhile to give them a try:
|
Back to top.
|
|
|
For those residents that have curbside recycling service with BFI, you can now put food scraps and food-soiled paper in your green organics cart (yardwaste). Here are some less-toxic ways you can control any pesky ants that may be around your food scraps kitchen pail, organics cart, or your blue garbage cart.
- Wrap your food scraps in newspaper or paper bags. (Please no plastic bags in the green cart; plastic contaminates the compost).
- Leave especially attractive food scraps (fruits/sweets) in your refrigerator or freezer until the night before collection.
- Ants won't cross water. If you can, set the kitchen pail in a shallow dish of water.
- Ants send out scouts (one or two ants). Kill the scouts every time you see them, and eventually, the nest will stop sending them (count on this to take about a month. Ants are slow learners).
- Ants have trouble climbing up anything slick like vegetable shortening or petroleum jelly. Wipe a ring of either substance around your kitchen pail to stop them.
- Place a barrier on the outside of your organics cart using a waterproof banding material. This material provides a non-absorbent surface for application of a sticky pest barrier product. As the insects climb up over the sticky bands, they become trapped without escape. You will have to monitor the effectiveness of the band since periodic re-application will be necessary when the sticky pest barrier becomes too dirty.
|
Back to top.
|
|
|
If you have any other questions, concerns or suggestions on ant control or food scraps, call the City of Fremont Environmental Services Division at 510-494-4740. |
You may also visit Union Sanitary District (USD) for more tips to manage pests in a less toxic way. Below is a two page PDF document on controlling ants.
|
In addition, you may also download this page in a pdf format for easier readability. |
Residential Food Scrap Program
Ant Control |
|
| Back to top.
|
