Odorous House Ants Stink
July 23rd, 2006
They smell like rotten coconut to be exact. I know this because we have been attacked by the little things. When you crush them between your fingers they stink. You can’t just kill them and have them get the point, though. No, they just keep coming back. I followed the trail outside our apartment. I was hoping to find the colony and deal some Windex-powered mayhem thoroughly rocking their collective world. The trail led outside our front door, over to the stairs. They went under the stairs on a metal railing that holds each individual concrete step in place. Halfway down the steps they cut across the landing and enter a crack in the stucco. They then appear to go inside the wall and out near the ground on the outside of the staircase area. This trail then continues out toward the sidewalk that runs along the fence near the creek. They follow the sidewalk’s edge for about ten feet until they finally cut across the sidewalk at one of the spaces in between the slabs. They then went under the wrought iron fence and down the cement wall until I couldn’t see them anymore.
I sprayed around as much as I could, but killing workers is truly a futile exercise. While I was windexing the ants’ brains out one of our neighbors came out of her apartment. She and her friend were talking about me spraying the ants. She told me that she had really bad problems with ants last year and she loaned me some bug spray. I sprayed all around the front door and the grate housing our AC and our water heater. I’m going to call tomorrow and see if the maintenance man will dust around the building like he did last year.
These last two days have been record high temperature days, so it doesn’t really matter what we do, they’re going to come in to get out of the heat. Until the maintenance man comes I doubt we’ll have any relief from the recurring infestation.
July 24th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
The smell of death is emanating from our abode, oh how sweet it is. We had the ant killers come today. Thank you sweet heaven!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:03 am
I had no idea that Windex was the weapon of choice when dealing with ants. Is that a common solution?
It brings back memories of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in which the greek father always had a spray bottle of Windex handy to cure, well, everything.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:47 am
I don’t think it’s exactly what one one call a “weapon of choice,” but according to many different sites I searched the ants don’t like Windex, and it has been theorized that it can clean up the pheromone trails that the ants usually follow.
I didn’t ever call the maintenance man and have him dust around my building, but I know that he dusted Spencer’s building, and maybe he just did them all. What I do know is after my anticidal rampage I have seen no trails and only a couple ants here and there. I am still not sure if these were Argentine Ants or Odorous House Ants. They seem to be difficult to tell apart based on my research. What I still have yet to learn is whether the Argentine Ants have a distinguishing odor when they are crushed. If they both smell the same then these may have been Argentine Ants and my title would not be correct. “Argentine Ants Stink” just doesn’t have that same “oomph” that I was going for.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
same problem, stinks like old victorian 2×4 s but worse, mix that with the smell of long buried cadavers or whatever. is found rotting underground, giving the impression they lurk deep underground. Strong bleach on small kitchen sponges seems to work, wipe ’em off then flush them down the sink, that way you don’t feel like a mass murderer. so it seems bleach is a good substitute for windex, but boy can they smell when squiged !!! also they home in on the smallest particle of FOOD !!! They also seem to have intelligence !!!!!!!!
August 9th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
If the colony is big it will take years. Unlike the sugar ants these stink ants have multiple queens. We had an exterminator for over a year and we just had to cancel because it cost a fortune!
March 16th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Hi, did you learn more about them? They are in my house. I have boric acid liquid bait that they like but they still keep coming in and only in the bedroom. Smells terrible.