Becky Taylor wrote:

My family has had a problem for a while now during the summer with tiny
little (about 1/16", if that) red/orangish ants that have been plaguing out
kitchen. They used to be coming from the drain or the "seam" where the sink
met the counter, but I just had an incident where they had come from
underneath the moulding to, for the first time, go after our dogs' food.
(Other times, they've been attracted to remains of other protein foods in
our sink - hamburger grease and residue, scraps of eggs, etc.)

Mop the floor and clean the cupboards ) Keep dog food cleaned up -
primary culprit. These sound like grease loving ants (dog food, eggs,
hamburger grease). We have used boric acid liquid bait with great
success, in different climates. The container I have now is called
"Ant-Kil", from Home Depot. Just about any hardware store would have
some version of the same stuff. Our container says, for grease ants, to
mix a few drops with a few drops of salad oil and place it next to the
trail. Under the sink or baseboard where they enter would be good.
Always gives good results for me. Try to caulk seams and cracks where
they enter, but the bait should take care of them, at least temporarily.
Getting rid of dog food helps a lot, as there are always crumbs on the
floor.


Dismantling the counter to take care of this would be difficult, and
fumigation would be a near-impossibility - we have two dogs and two cats
and no other place to stay. They haven't proved a big problem - just a
quick mop-up of they and their trails when they every few days or so
ppear - but, of course, I'm unnerved by a resident insect population in
the house, and the dog food thing is not good. These ants don't seem to be
attracted to the typical supermarket "big ant" bait traps. Are there any
steps I can take to get rid of them - and what kind of ant _are_ they?
Many thanks for any help.