ANTS! In my BATHROOM!

EAK!
I went in to have a shower tonight and there are all kinds of little ants wandering around my bathroom. They appear to be coming from under the toilet, but I'm not positive, as there was a whole lot of them on my bathmat.
I squished and squished and squished some more, shook out the mat and squished again, then I took some bathroom cleanser and sprayed it around the outside of the toilet, had a shower and found a couple more wandering in under the door when I got out. I walked through the hallway, and inspected closely, and only found one...so I still think they're in my bathroom. It really doesn't make sense! I don't eat in there and it's nowhere close to my kitchen!
I don't know how it happened, but we've never had ants in my house growing up, and this is my first apartment. What do I do?!? I certainly can't name them all, and how did Chester AND Dynah miss the boat on this one? I mean, Dynah is only 4 months old so maybe she didn't know how to chase ants, but Chester is ALWAYS complaining about the lack of food in this place (he's on a diet)...
Ick. What do I do about ants???

Ant traps?

My Grandma told me that if I ever have ants- to draw chalk lines around the walls of the room. Apparently ants won't cross a chalk line!
I did that in my bathroom and no more ants! I just took chalk and put it around my baseboards and the floor and it really did work!

Otherwise since its in your bathroom, I'd get some RAID and just keep your cats out of there when your using it, I used that also and it works wonders!

This happened to me one night in my kitchen. All of a sudden there were tons of baby ants around the sink. I rushed to the grocery store and bought some sort of ant powder. This killed them very quickly. I wondered if an ant pod had come in on one of my barbeque utensils, then hatched. Yuk! I was frantic.
If you do use the powder (I bought it at Dominion. You live in Ontario, so you know the store I'm sure) keep the door closed in the bathroom so the cats don't get at it.
Weird this would happen in the winter!

Try getting a tube of clear silicone from Home Depot or Lowes and seal up around the base of the toilet... there may be a teeny tiny crack you can't see.
They sell silicone tubes that you don't have to put in caulk gun... it's in a squeeze tube

yeah, totally weird...especially since I don't really have much in my bathroom. I did have some stuff stored out in the garage until a month ago, but nothing for my bathroom. I was wondering about one of those raid traps or something (get it in the morning).
I'm so weirded out!

Originally Posted by Sylorna

I'm so weirded out!

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Me too, but it's because I forgot to confirm my new email address, and it took me three times to figure out why I was being denied permission to reply!

All I was going to add was, sometimes they come in in search of water, too, but it does seem like a weird time of year for that . I usually spray Raid ant killer on a few layers of paper towels, and wipe around where they are coming in, and then wipe up the ants with it. Not so much spray flying around, or as much for the critters to get into .

Ants are disgusting!! The reason that they are in your bathroom is because they are attracted to water. They like to come up through your pipes, or like you said, any crack that is around your pipes.

An old trick, that is safe around your cats if they happened to get in there is to put a bowl of food inside a plate filled with water. Shut the door and leave it and the next day you should have many drowned ants. Now of course this dosen't kill the queen, but it is safe around pets and kids unlike most commercial ant killers. The chalk thing also works, and I've heard that lines of flour work the same way, but I've never tried that so I can't be sure. Don't buy the little ant bait hotel things. As far as I've ever been able to tell, they don't work. Not to mention they have a smell that attracts pets to them.

Good luck with it all, ants are complete pests!

I found one in the middle of the night when I got up to use the facilities...but there weren't any crawling around today. I'm in the middle of writing 2 essays and working on studying for an exam for this week, so maybe I'll do the bowl of food trick (no chalk) just to make sure and if I find any hanging around, go get some spray and use that cloth trick.
Here's hoping my tub spray actually worked and I wont have to worry about it. I did spray it down pretty good, and the one random one that I sprayed did realitively quickly (although it could have been from drowning).
Also, it's in an apartment and coming out of the crack between my toilet and the newly ceramic tiled floor, so maybe the bowl trick might be better (who knows where the nest is?)
lol, maybe they mistook the grout for their home!
Thanks guys, as always you're a huge help

I hope you get rid of them, Ewwww, I hate ants.

Yuck - I hate them too! We had them in our kitchen last summer, but got some ant traps that were safe to use around the kitties, and finally got rid of them!

How are you getting ants? Isn't it still cold up there? They shouldn't be out yet......unless you have a nest somewhere in the building.

We get ants in our house every year. Being a trailer we can put traps between the two window panes and that helps. If I find a bunch I just spray them with windex or some other glass cleaner, that kills on contact plus I don't worry about the cats. I just shoo them away while spraying.

The same thing happened to me last week. I went to go to the bathroom and there was ants all over the floor. They were swarming around a piece of dog food. That same day they were also all over this room on dog food. There is dog food all over the place because Milo takes it out of the dogs bowl and plays with it all over the house.

Originally Posted by KittenKiya

How are you getting ants? Isn't it still cold up there? They shouldn't be out yet......unless you have a nest somewhere in the building.

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I really hope not! so far no more have shown their heads...Windex is an excellent idea! I have windex!