Pest Control

[ykopel]

Hey All!

I live in an apartment in Brooklyn. We've had a bit of an ant problem lately, and my wife keeps asking me to do something about it. I am scared to spray anything since it is in the same room as Ruth's cage. Any ideas? I have food-grade diatomaceous earth, and I was wondering if anyone knew if that would be alright. I would put some out on the floor across the room from her cage.

Thanks!

[NennaMeerkat]

When we had fleas I used industrial grade flea spray stuff around my reptiles with no problem. It was a spray that you use directly into carpets and furniture. Stunk to high heaven but the fumes never reached high enough to get into any tanks. As long as a room has proper ventilation I would think you would be okay. Now I know you don't have fleas but I would think you would be okay.

They also make pellet ant poison. You sprinkle it on and moisten it. Now normally it is for throwing on an ant mound, but I found putting it where the ants travel and the holes/cracks they come out of and moistening it will work and the poison stays in the area for a long while so any other ants coming in contact with it would die. Some ants even attempted to cart it off as if food...which made the poison work even better if they made it towards the nest.

This is what I used:
http://www.amazon.com/Bayer-700050A-Tri ... 74&sr=8-11

And I think the flea spray I used works for just about anything that is small and crawls. After I sprayed it in our living room/kitchen I was seeing plenty of dead insects that had been hiding out. It is pretty powerful stuff!

http://www.amazon.com/Zoecon-Precor-200 ... 843&sr=1-2

[Fatal_S]

Something like raid wouldn't affect the skinks. You could also use insecticides like no-pest strips (they release an insecticide chemical into the air, it coats everything, bugs die). If you use chemicals though remove all food/water from the area for at least several hours after the chemical is used/removed. When I used no-pest strips I provided dishes of clean water daily then removed them. Insecticides aren't terrible for vertebrates but they're not something that should be ingested.