Household Ants Infesting my Room (near enclosure)

[feline8]

Yesterday, I noticed an army of ants crawling around the corner of my room near my tortoise's enclosure. (I have a 3" red foot)
I moved my tortoise into another area and placed ant poison (the liquid stuff that they take to the colony, which slowly kills them) but there are still so many of them crawling around the enclosure.
I plan to get rid of the enclosure and set one up somewhere else. When I take apart the enclosure and get to the ants' nests, what should I do to kill these pests? Would spraying those insect repellent/killers work?

...I dont even know where these ants come from. They didn't all appear since yesterday, and I didn't leave any food out either.

 

[wellington]

Probably came in the substrate. When you replace the substrate, bake it. Like 250 for an hour or so. Hopefully it will kill and eggs, etc. don't freeze it, doesn't work, tried it. A memver boils his and has worked for him.

 

[feline8]

Probably came in the substrate. When you replace the substrate, bake it. Like 250 for an hour or so. Hopefully it will kill and eggs, etc. don't freeze it, doesn't work, tried it. A memver boils his and has worked for him.

The substrate (peat moss) was from 2 weeks ago. It didn't have any ants or other bugs in it.

 

[mainey34]

Are on a slab or a crawl space? There is a mixture that you can make to get rid of them critters. I myself use androise. Type in ants in the search tortoise forum...good luck. I think torts and ants are buds...

 

[lynnedit]

See this:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-22303.html#axzz1PZH67Eq5

This stuff is amazing. I had the same problem earlier this year.
Just place the little traps at several points along the trail. If you can find out where they are coming in, place a couple at the foundation of the house outside too.

Give it a few days, you may even see a brief increase, but hang in there!

 

[ascott]

You can also use FOOD GRADE Diatomaceous Earth;

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...i&srccode=cii_184425893&cpncode=31-38554478-2

This can be spread right into the enclosure substrate as well as around the enclosure....if the tort ingests it there will be no harm...just don't feed him loads of it as some natural gut parasites are acceptable and you do not want to kill off all of the good ones....this is used in livestock for parasite control...people even use it too....it kills ants and other hard exoskeleton insects....

I have used the above link as an example of what it is...that product linked here is simply for reference (it sounds like a good one, you can also purchase the food grade earth at a feed store in person)...