Combat Ant Killing Gel 27grams
by DIAL CORPORATION
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List Price: Our Price: $2.99 You Save: $2.00 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Lawn & Patio See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Combat Ant Killing Gel 27grams
Customer Review: worked great at first...seems to have become less effective over time
Summary: 4 Stars
The first time my girlfriend and I used this product, the effect was a sight to behold. It was Christmas 2004, and we had returned from an afternoon out to find that ANTS had discovered a shattered candy cane, which had fallen from our Christmas tree. So we went out to Walgreens and bought this Combat Ant Gel stuff. After squirting out several blobs of the gel next to the ant trail, right at the source where they were coming in through the wall, we watched with amazement as the ants immediately began to notice, and feast greedily upon, the deadly gel. Within an hour, the ants were coming in droves, all wih the singular purpose of getting some of that gel. For many of the ants, the gel seemed to have a drug-like effect: their movements became lethargic and unfocused. We went to bed that night wondering what would happen to the horde of doped-out ants in our living room.
The next morning we awoke, and...the ants were gone. Vanished. No sign of them. Magic. And they never came back.
The gel had apprently worked as intended: the ants had taken the poision back to their queen, effectively wiping out the colony.
Fast-forward to summer 2006. We are in a new house, and again we get ants (this time they seem to be coming in for no specific reason, going toward no particular destination). So we break out our precious little remaing stock of the gel -- the leftovers from nearly 2 years ago. Well, the ants seem interested, but not obsessed as they ought to be. The gel helps, but the ants don't totally disappear.
Is the magic gone, we wonder? We suspect our aging product has lost its potency, so we determine to buy a fresh batch. To our disappointment, we cannot find the Combat Ant Gel at any drug store, hardware store, or super store! I finally locate it here on Amazon, and order up a stockpile, fearing the product may be going off the market.
And then reality sets in. Equipped with our fresh supply of the gel, we go to work on the ants, who keep entering our house from diferent entry points. But on each occasion, the ants seem a little less obsessed with the gel. Now, when we squirt a blob on the floor next to their trail, the ants casually snack on it, with an infuriatingly defiant "take it or leave it" attitude. And they don't realy go away. Sometimes the ants will disappear, but never for very long.
Have the ants developed an immuninity to the gel? Are we simply dealing with a different breed of ants than we were in our first apartment? (For the record, they look idential to me -- the little tiny black ones.)
I don't have the answers to these questions. What I do know is that we are now talking to our landlord about calling an exterminator. It's hard to accept that Combat Ant Gel, which worked such wonders the first time around, could be so ineffective now. But that seems to be the case.
If you have an ant problem, definitely try out this product. I hope it works as well for you as it did for us, the first time.
Customer Review: Same active ingredient!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
***** Update 10/24/10 *****
After using this for a couple of years I've found something new and better. Hot Shot Ultra Clear Roach & Ant Gel.
Search Amazon for - Hot Shot Ultra Clear Roach & Ant Gel and read my review.
Last year we had a real bad ant problem. I put out different bait and traps, all to no avail! So I called a professional exterminator, he came out and I watched carefully as he applied some stuff with what looked like a syringe. I got a glimpse of the product name and as soon as he left I jumped on the net to look it up the product and ordered some. Now the Combat product that ths review is about has the exact same active ingredient, in the exact same strength. I paid $[...] plus shipping. I got a lot more than comes in the Combat package, but if I had it to do again I'd buy the smaller amount - it just doesn't take a lot.
It works GREAT. It calls itself a gel, but it is very thin almost the consistency of a syrup. It will drip when you are applying it if you aren`t careful. I opened my applicator by taking a very small nail (the small one that came with a picture hanging thingy) holding it with a pair of pliers and heating it up over a stove. Then taking the hot nail a giving it a quick spray of Pam and push it into the tip of the applicator. This gave me a much smaller hole in the tip than cutting of the tip. Save the nail and use it to stop up the tip up when you are done applying the gel.
When you have ants follow the line of ants to find the entry point, this is where you apply the gel. I push the tip up to the crevice or small hole where they are coming from and push in some gel carefully. DO NOT SPRAY ANT KILLER AROUND IT!!! Now it takes a little patience, just walk away. The ants that are inside the wall stop at the gel and feed, the ants on the inside the house will work their way back to the crevice and start to feed too. I'd check back the next day, if I found ants again I'd give it another small shot of gel. We had several more infestations in different parts of the house over the next few days (it seemed that they had gotten into the attic and found different entry points). But in a week or so all traces of ants were gone. This year (as I still have plenty of gel left) whenever we see a line of ants anywhere outside the house I give it a blob of gel and check back in a day or two and we haven't had any get into the house yet - Yeaaa!!!
We haven't had a problem with our cats. In the house you end up pushing the gel in out of the way spaces where the cats can't get to, outside it's a bit more tricky, but with a little creativity I can find a crack or spot that the ants are by but the cats can't get to.
Hope this helps.
I highly recommend this product.
Customer Review: Contains the insecticide proven most effective
Summary: 5 Stars
The reason I titled this review as I did is because an ant control "product" isn't what works per se, it's the insecticide it contains, followed by whether the ants will eat the bait or just walk through it. I spent a great deal of time researching, and according to university studies, fipronil is the most effective ingredient because it spreads easily through the colony and yet its toxicity is sufficiently delayed that the ants don't die before they can pass it on. As a result 95% eradication of the colony within 3 days is typical.
That's what the research says compared to other ingredients, and it worked just as well for me on every occasion that I've had to use it. If I come home to discover an ant invasion, I remove competing sources of food (read: clean better and take the trash out) find where the ants seem to be entering the house, and apply the gel (wear a rubber glove; it's hard not to get some on your skin). The sight of ants lining up around the bait like little pigs at a trough is quite gratifying. They eat their fill, leave, and never come back. It may take 3 days to completely wipe out the colony, but every time I've used it the ants eat, leave after a few hours, and never return.
Now, perhaps I've been fortunate in that they have always eaten the gel. Fipronil should work if you just contrive to have them walk through the gel, but obviously if they eat and share with their buddies it's a guaranteed home run. However, there are sweet ants and protein ants, and it's likely some species may not take a given bait no matter what the product is. In that case you could mix the gel with, say, peanut butter for grease/protein ants. If they don't eat the gel, you obviously need to find out what food they like. The benefit of a gel product like this is that you can mix it with anything. There are some other products like Maxforce FC that also use fipronil, but again the takeway is: 1) use a fipronil-based product, and 2) find a way to get them to eat it if they don't eat the gel itself. Do that and the battle will be won very quickly, and you can bask in the triumph of superior intelligence and the scientific method; never again will the legions of tiny invaders cause undue consternation.
Customer Review: Works wonders. Wish it were more kidsafe.
Summary: 4 Stars
This stuff works very quickly. I once had a whole swarm of ants heading nowhere in particular all over my great room. It was as if we had built our house on an ant hill, which it probably was. They were just on the prowl for whatever but not in a line to any food or water.
At any rate, I was desperate. I put the ant gel in three nooks and corners of that room. The ants swarmed it at once and within hours, most of them were dead. Some ants die on the spot. Others are able to make it back to the nest, where hopefully the queen will die.
Ever since that proven day, I use this stuff when desperate. I don't like to pull it out unless necessary, because it is toxic and we just squirt it out. I try to put it in areas not accessible to the children and dog or where they won't bother to go. If there is an ant line, I will put it out at night, when the children are asleep and the ants are gone the next day.
The ants don't seem to care for the gel after it dries. I've ruined a few corners with the gel, because the gel will dry and the ants will no longer go after it, but it attracts dirt and it's hard to remove. So, I now place it on aluminum foil, which I can dispose of more easily. Remember, this stuff is toxic, so you need to be careful how it is disposed.
What I would like to see from this product is a little box or something more childproof and pet proof. I could maybe fill that box with this gel when needed. Then, I could use the gel more often. As it stands, it makes me too nervous to bring it out unless I am backed into a corner. It works, though. It's better than any bait I've ever tried.
UPDATE: Eventually, after many years, the ants begin building up a resistance to this poison. Still, I haven't found any better ant bait. While the affects used to be visible within hours, now it takes days. It just takes longer to work.
Customer Review: Works at least some of the time
Summary: 4 Stars
Like every other resident of Northern California, my house sits on top of a gigantic ant pile. So, long story short, when it comes to slow-acting ant poison, I've tried it all. Some of them (like the Raid traps) were completely ineffective: the ants simply ignored them. Others (like the Terro bait traps) seemed to at least attract the ants, but didn't kill them, or at least didn't kill the colony completely. This Combat gel was a last resort before I was going to actually bug bomb my house, but to my surprise, it worked! The ants in my kitchen swarmed the gel - just like the Terro traps - but in this case, they were completely gone within 3 days and they haven't been back since!
A caveat: I know that the active ingredients between products are different, so there's a good chance that I just happened to finally find the right chemical to work on my particular ants. A few weeks after the above success, I found a large stream of ants outside my house, so I took some preventative action and put the gel in their path. This time, they swarmed and swarmed, but just kept coming back. I reapplied the gel once per day for a week, but the stream never dwindled. Perhaps these were different ants? Perhaps I just got lucky with the ones in the kitchen? Hard to say, and that's why I'm only giving it 4 stars instead of 5, because it still worked once, and when it did work, it worked REALLY well.
Lastly: Since the gel didn't work on the ants outside, I used Terro 600 1-Pound Ant Killer Dust to protect the perimeter of my house. It won't "kill the colony," but man will it get rid of those scouts. I'd be a bit wary of using it inside since it has to be highly toxic, and it looks like it's going to sit there for a long, long time, but if you need to keep the ants away, that stuff really works.