Ants! Help!

So my boyfriend and I just noticed that we have a chronic ant problem; unfortunately, they're drawn to the cats food. I'm concerned they've been eating them, right along with their food. What health effects can I expect if this is true?

My s/o thinks this is why they've been meowing more, but I don't know. Either way, I'm worried. Any thoughts?

I doubt your ants have been ingesting pesticide, or they wouldn't be overrunning your home. So it's just your cat getting extra (albeit very tiny) portions of protein. It's perfectly normal for cats to eat insects around the house.

Your cats may be meowing because they don't like ants all over their food dishes.

The trick is to place each food dish in a saucer filled with water. The ants won't be able to cross the moat to get to the food.

There are also some effective organic pesticides that are safe to use around household pets.

ive heard putting cucumber slices out also keeps ants away but im not sure if its true

Pick up some diatomaceous earth at your local garden centre (human/food grade) and place it across your doorways, around baseboards or any place you think the ants might be coming in. DE is safe for mammals, i.e., if you or your cat ingested any the only thing it would do is rid your system of parasites which is a good thing.

I had a mass of ants show up a couple weeks ago. I immediately put down DE and within 1 hour the ants were gone! Yes!

Fantastic suggestions! Okay. I figured they'd be fine, but my boyfriend woke me up, panicked, at three in the morning. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

Thanks so much! ^_^

I read somewhere the other day that lemons work to get rid of ants? Not sure if that's true or not.

Another trick is to put Vaseline on the floor around the cat bowls. The ants cannot cross over the Vaseline!