My experience has been that if you get rid of the food source, the ants will
leave.

In our house the cat food was the target. We placed the cats' food bowl in
a slightly larger container that was partially filled with water. This
artificial "moat" prevented the ants from getting to the food (ants don't
swim). They soon tired of searching for another food source and left.

Good luck,

Ken


"Becky Taylor" wrote in message
...
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.)

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.