If you live in a house in California, you have ants. That’s just the way it is here. So as new homeowners, Kyle and I have been discovering and spraying ants fairly regularly since we moved in.
Earlier this week I found them in the pantry, where they had discovered the sugar I had not carefully sealed. So, sugar goes in the trash, everything in the pantry gets removed, and ants get sprayed with Ortho Home Defense (which works like a charm).
Then yesterday I found them in the freezer.
The freezer. WTF.
So I follow the trail down the refrigerator (where they had also entered by squeezing through the rubber seal), around the corner and across the laundry room floor to the edge of the wall. There is a huge mass of them milling around on the open floor like they found some spilled soda or something, and I’m at a loss to explain this behavior.
My best guess is that they were trying to return to the pantry by a different route, and encountered the chemical barrier from the insecticide, causing the equivalent of a 3000 car pileup at the edge.
But I remain bemused about the freezer. The fridge I guess I can understand, since there was leftover Chinese food in there. But the cold prevented them from doing very much as they went into hibernation almost immediately. In the freezer they made it about 3 inches inside before being frozen to death.
I might add that the refrigerator is brand new, and the door seals work quite well. There were a lot of dead/squished ants around the edges, with only a few making it inside. I’m impressed at their determination, although I’m at a loss as to what attracted them there.
Kyle speculated that the previous tenants kept their drug stash in that area, as we all know that ants like nothing better than a big doobie.
Almost as confusing was the tidy, meandering line of ants I found across the carpet one morning. They weren’t going to or from food or water. They were apparently just traveling between one small hole in the wall to another, and the carpet happened to be a convenient highway. Clearly there are some cracks that need to be sealed in this house.
Obviously I need to be more aggressive about spraying and putting out bait. You can’t completely get rid of Argentine ants (a very common sort of sugar-eating ant around here), as they have multiple queens and different colonies do not fight each other. The best you can do is control their numbers, discourage them from entering your house, and/or chase them to a neighbor’s property.
But the freezer expedition, I don’t get that. My brother-in-law is an entomologist, with a particular interest in ant behavior. Perhaps he can shed light on it. I suppose I should be glad that ants don’t freak me out. They don’t bite and they’re not really very creepy. It’s just a nuisance. But I can’t help being mildly fascinated by their activities.
UPDATE: I now have a theory about why the ants were attracted to the freezer in the first place. Last night we ordered a pizza, and since we didn’t eat it all, we stuck the rest of it in the refrigerator. This morning when I opened the freezer, I was almost knocked down by the smell of pizza.
I speculate that the air circulation system for the freezer and refrigerator are in some way connected, and thus smells in the fridge are picked up and carried into the freezer by the air system
There was Chinese food in the refrigerator at the time of the ant invasion. If that smell was carried into the freezer, then the freezer would also have smelled like a food source to ants on the outside of the unit. Thus, the arctic expedition.
January 10th, 2004 at 1:04 pm - Edit
I had the same problems ubtil I hired a sommercial company to spray the perimeter of the house every other month.
January 11th, 2004 at 11:04 am - Edit
Get some wood glue and seal every hole that the ants use. Eventually you’ll get all of the holes.
I had one condo (2-story) that we always had 2-3 ants wandering around the upstairs bathroom. Didn’t matter if you killed ‘em, and they never found anything, but they were always there.
January 15th, 2004 at 8:54 pm - Edit
Commercial spraying is one possible solution. I’ve had pretty good luck so far with Terro liquid ant bait and outdoor Raid spray (man that shit is toxic).
Heavy rain seems to bring them out of the woodwork, literally. When the rain stops they disappear. It doesn’t rain a whole lot here, so I think I can cope.
And a tube of silicone sealant doesn’t hurt either.
March 13th, 2004 at 10:52 pm - Edit
Did you ever find out what the ants were doing in the freezer? You are the fourth person I know who has found them there. If left alone they can accumulate in quantity; I once found a couple of cups of them in a freezer in a house I was renting in Noe Valley, SF. Something similar happened to a co-worker and to my friend Nancy (Nancy found only a modest number.)
My theory is this: One ant gets into the freezer, maybe at random, maybe attracted by a smell. It gets frozen and dies. Ants like to follow each other, so another ant follows the first ant in, and dies likewise. If any of the ants survived, they would tell their nestmates that the freezer is a bad place to be, probably by laying down an odor (technically a pheronome) to that effect, which would cancel the trail that the other ants are following, but this never happens, so in they go, one after another till thousands of ants (or however ants it takes to make a cupful) are in the freezer.
Anyway, ask your brother-in-law. I’m curious about this.
November 21st, 2004 at 8:30 pm - Edit
You’ll have to revise your theory. Perhaps Jon has the right idea. My freezer is empty except for a bag of frozen peas and the ants suddenly appeared two days ago and started marching into the freezer to their death. Thousands and thousands of them have crawled into the freezer so far. There are impressive black piles of them in there now. I can’t decide whether it would be better to continue to let them kill themselves in the freezer or to try to seal the holes where they are coming into the house.
April 3rd, 2005 at 8:03 pm - Edit
Our freezer is under attack right now!!! My roommates and I are all in college and went away for spring break. Before we left we clean out the fridge and freezer of everything, but we came back there were hundreds of ants in the freezer. We were grossed out but we cleaned them only to finds a couple hundred more in the freezer the next morning. We have no clue what they could be going after, but we are depertly looking for a solution to make it stop.
June 13th, 2005 at 6:43 pm - Edit
Another person with crazy ants committing suicide in the freezer! What’s weirder is that they’re not going anywhere else. We cannot even find where they are coming in from! (As an aside… is this how they came up with “Ant-arctica?) This happened in a previous apartment as well, until someone came to spray the perimeter. Does anyone have any bright ideas for how to secure the freezer without using pesticides? We now live in a very environmentally sensitive rural area and would rather not spray toxic stuff inside.
September 5th, 2005 at 10:01 am - Edit
Add me to the list of people whoses freezer is being invaded by Ants. Each morning there is a pile of them on the floor of the freezer (it’s a new kenmore side-by-side). They appear to enter from the very top, plummet to their deaths, then freeze.
About 1 in 300 falls into the ice maker. Gross for me and unfortunate for them. Has anyone determined why this is happening? They stay out of the fridge and away from the sugar bowls. What types of bait or ant traps worked for the other freezer invaded people?
October 1st, 2005 at 1:39 am - Edit
My frige has been bombarded with ants not once but more than several times each year! especially in the freezer I find hundreds and possibly thousands ( they look like coarse pepper).
I actually made an experiment.. sounds gross but this is what I did.. I notice they only arrive during the triple digits, So I kept my frige at the coldest temp and they were gone.. of course all my food froze.
If I leave the frige at its normal they are back. This is my theory, They are actually using the frige as their own personal airconditioning for breeding purposes. Ive killed so far 5 Queens.. and yet I know theres more!.. so I took my commercial steamer and steamed the inside crevices and viola all of them came rushing out…. including more queens.
So I took a combination of bleach water and wiped everything from the inside crevices and they were temporarily gone, but I found out as long as I kept cleaning it with bleach the smell seemed to send them packing.
Raquel
March 8th, 2006 at 2:20 pm - Edit
There are a few thousand ants in my freezer right now. I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE! Please, for the love of GOD - SOMEBODY post a solution to this sickening problem!
March 27th, 2006 at 7:59 pm - Edit
Well.. i am quite surprised to hear thst so many others are having the same problem! About 3 or 4 yrs. ago, I opened up my freezer and found thousands of freeze dried ants. This went on for some time, over and over again, then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Now, 4 yrs. later, and new appliances (4 mos. old) the other day, I open my freezer, and YIKES! freeze dried ants again. And no idea where they are coming from, no trail anywhere! However, unlike the time 4 yrs. ago, I have seen a few ants here and there, probably due to the rain. But none in food or cupboards, or counters. I cleaned them out last night, and so far, they haven’t come back, (been almost 24 hrs.) We’re expecting a big rainstorm tonight and to last 3 or 4 days, so I’ll be keeping watch!
August 13th, 2006 at 1:30 pm - Edit
I have ants, mounds of ants, in my kitchen and garage fridges. I think the idea that they are breeding (lots of baby ants on my cupboards) is very possible, as well as their communications stop because of the cold. But doesn’t that theory contradict itself.
Whatever, I’d like the easiest solution possible, please. I really don’t want Antimite in the house because we have dogs! and, I hate to clean. That is the cleaning people’s job.
At least I know that while we were gone on vacation the past 10 days, no one was in my freezer. The non use played a part, I think.
Yes, California (southern) is one huge ant hill!
July 7th, 2007 at 10:28 am - Edit
Wow, Who knew? Well I will keep all of these solutions in mind as I figure out how Im going to attack our ants. They are EVERYWHERE…but the WORST is in the freezer and frige. We have a smaller unit that has the freezer on top and frige underneath. The ants are actually coming from INSIDE the freezer walls…..
They come out of the cracks where all of the unit pieces come together or are screwed together. I think they have a nest actually INSIDE the unit…. A year ago we found a huge next inside the wall next to an electrical outlet. I called the exterminator who said they will sometimes live in these areas (like cockroaches do sometimes) because of the warmth,….. UGH. Still haven’t gotten rid of them, and they are back every 6 months…. Anyone else have any other ideas?
Thanks!
July 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm - Edit
I cleaned up our fridge recently to get rid of those black ants. I opened the freezer five minutes ago and then a pile of them are dead huddled on the corner.
I googled to see any solution and found this page.
Exterminator every other month? Any other solutions? It seems like buying a new fridge won’t make a difference.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 am - Edit
Thank God I found you folks! I am the proud owner of a frozen ant graveyard as well! I have never seen anything like it. I’m just glad it’s not only me. I don’t feel so dirty now. ha ha ha
October 9th, 2007 at 6:02 pm - Edit
I got some Terro ant baits and put one on top of the fridge near where the ants were heading for the freezer. They found it and started eating. After 36 hours they stopped going into the freezer. The poison in these baits is borax, which supposedly is no more toxic than table salt.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am - Edit
I have cupfuls of ants in my freezer too! Some in the fridge, as well, where they are alive and walking around (albeit slowly) but apparently not much interested in the food. Also, they are uninterested in the rest of the kitchen, where I have compost and fruit out (though i’m always meticulous about sealing everything else and having counters very clean, having grown up with regular ants that would find any crumb lying around–in the past my trash can has been invaded, even though it seals quite well. This time trash, recycling and compost have been ant-free). Thousands of ants in the freezer, freeze-drying and collecting around the bottom corner near the door–i assume trying to get out. I’ve cleaned everything out thoroughly, many times, including around and behind the fridge. The ants are visibly getting in through the crack (space) between the metal interior frame of the fridge and the hard white plastic interior, I don’t think as many of mine are coming in through the rubber seal. I tried putting cinnamon–someone told me this was a good deterent– into said crack, and around icemaker, and it’s slowed their progress, but that may have been simply a partial physical barrier (i poured a good amount in), or that the heavy rain we’ve had has stopped. I think they come in from the rain, but i’ve NEVER had them in the fridge and ignoring other food sources though! I guess i’ll try the non-toxic borax ball, inside the freezer. i look forward to entomologists reports on this suicidal behavior! I know about them leaving a tenacious trail and all, but one would think that if ants go one way and never come back, their brethren (and pheromones) would have evolved to know better than to follow!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am - Edit
I think you’re right that it’s heavy rain that drives them indoors. I always notice an influx in the house after a strong rain. I’m still bemused about the fridge. I would suggest that you buy some Ortho Home Defense spray (nontoxic to humans and pets) and spray a “perimeter” around the fridge and in the kitchen. I’ve found it does a good job at discouraging ants.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm - Edit
Ants in my ice cubes!!
I found ants in my freezer, everywhere… dead. Some of them tried ice-skating and were frozen inside the ice cubes. How do I make them go away?? Every morning the freezer is peppered with these critters…
August 11th, 2008 at 11:18 pm - Edit
Oh my gosh! I was so embarassed to think that I was the only one suffering from this problem. I too have found ants in my fridge and freezer, I just had to wash my ice cube trays because they were full of dead ants. Now ,I do have to admire the sacrifice they are making to get my food or whatever they are after in my fridge, but it’s getting damn annoying since I have to clean my fridge all the time. Just yesterday we had friends over and I was so worried that they would open the fridge to get a beer and find those un-invited guests in there. Besides my fridge, they are all over my place, in my cabinets, on my table,I even had to kill one that was crawling on my laptop just a few seconds ago! Stupid Ants!
August 20th, 2008 at 11:13 am - Edit
So where’s the entymologists’ report? This is just freaky. They’re like… Muslim Ants making a Meccan pilgrimage up across the Swanson frozen Salisbury Steak and on to their final frozen state… I could see if they were drawn in by Mrs. Butterworth or something but WTF is it with icecube trays and Birdseye peas??
September 25th, 2008 at 3:24 pm - Edit
Chalk me up as another with freezer invaders. My freezer is empty except for ice! They did a month-long freezer raid about 3 years ago, and now they’re back for more suicide-y fun. Maybe it’s like an ant Logan’s Run?