Pesky tiny bugs.

We have these tiny bugs, almost invisible to the naked eye, in our Casa.
We're always careful not to leave crumbs around, but still hoards of these critters appear on counters, stove,sink etc.,

Disinfecting floors, kitchen counters,garbage can, doesn't deter them from breeding.
They crawl over my arms and face while at my computer. We've tried fumigating around the outside of the house, but still they appear.
Would hiring a professional fumigating company be the answer...suggestions welcome.

Getting a positive ID on the exact kind of bug would be a good first step. Know thy enemy! My first guess would be ants, going by their behaviour, but "pesky tiny bugs" is a fairly broad description.

If they're ants, try ant traps for a couple of weeks. They are small round boxes with holes for the ants to enter and access the poison bait inside. The ants carry the bait back to their home, the queen eats some, and eventually, everybody dies. Safe (for non-ants!), inexpensive and effective.

They're most likely "bobos." Harmless, they hatch by the millions at this time of year. They live only 3-4 days.

No, I'll bet they are those tiny microscopic ants. It is the season for them and they are in my casa and everyone else I know. They are hard to get rid off. I have sprayed with Home Defender and put down some ant powder but alas they come back after a few days. I finally bought some ant traps so we'll see how that works. May have to just get used to them for a while.

David, bobo's are flying pests.........

Thanks all for your responses. We'll try the ant traps. Reassuring to know that we're not alone with this problem.
In 9 years, we've not seen anything like these insects.
One friends suggestion was "Just ignore them, I do" Easy to say!

ants fer sure we get them all the time

Yes and they are quite a bit smaller than the typical "sugar ants". The little buggers get into everything. The other morning I went to make my coffee and a few of the little buggers were in the sugar bowl. I used the sugar anyways and considered it as my morning protein fix......

CanuckBob wrote: bobo's are flying pests.........

I know, we have millions of them. No micro-ants though.

Maybe your bobo's are eating the micro ants......jajajaja.

Beer bottle caps with a mixture of boric acid (acido borico), sugar and water and see if they don't swarm to it. About half and half with enough water to make it liquid.

I use ant traps for regular sized ants and they seem to work fairly well. I've used them near the sugar ants I sometimes get in the kitchen, but they didn't appear to take the bait. Sorry for the pun. Was that a pun? Nevermind. In any case, I've never had the sugar ants anywhere but in the kitchen and if I don't leave crumbs they are rarely seen save a few scouts. I spray them with some poison I got from the hardware store and they are gone for a week or so. As for bobo's paint the area they are in a darker color and they will vacate the premises. I had them when I moved into my house by the thousands. Painted my courtyard purple, and poof! Was like a magic trick. Haven't seen one out there since.

We used to have the same little buggers all over, then about 3 years ago we started using a pest control Co. out of Guadalajara. Now, no more bugs of any kind.

Amezdy..3 660 42 87

We have them come every 4 months.

Check out Diatomaceous Earth. Works great and isn't a poison.

The problem with ants is that contact killers like diatomaceous earth and many sprays will only kill the ants that physically come into contact with that pest control method in that specific location. It's a very temporary solution because the ant colony is constantly producing more ants. You have to get the poison into their nest and kill the queen if you want to get rid of them completely. The queen and all the ants inside the nest depend on whatever the foragers bring back for them. (Leafcutter ants have a more complex feeding arrangement.) So a poison bait which they can carry back to the nest is the most effective method to get rid of ants specifically without poisoning the whole environment.

We noticed a huge reduction in our kitchen ant population after we put out cockroach paste. Cockroaches ate it and died, other cockroaches ate the corpses and died, and within days there wasn't a roach to be found, dead or alive! Lovely! But the ants slowly disappeared, although the bait didn't seem to attract them. I assume it's because the ants ate the dead cockroaches.

The ant population in the MidSouth is gihugic. Trying to kill them all would be quite the war so I settle for keeping them out of my house.

If they are ants, they work by smell. A scout goes out to find something and leaves a trail. If it finds something it goes back leaving a scent that everyone else follows.

You can break the trail with vinegar in a spray bottle. Just spray the trail and they get lost.

If you add a little to the mop water, it will keep them out.

If you want to kill them in a kitchen, spray them with Windex. Safe and effective.

The only permanent solution is to poison the nest. I mix about 2 tablespoon of Boric Acid with about 2 tablespoons of water. Then I buy a squeeze bottle of pancake syrup, heat it in the microwave and mix in the Boric acid. I ran the stream back to the nest and liberally squirt the syrup/acid mixture around. Takes about a week to kill the nest that way.

Kill one nest and another will pop up in days. Neverending war......

If it's the tiny, tiny ants, definitely boric acid/acido borico. (It's a powder.) We don't even bother with the recipe of water/suger previously posted twice. We just sprinkle it at the cracks where the wall meets the kitchen counter, then use a credit card or whatever to line it up like a long line of....then LEAVE it there until the counters get cleaned so many times it has disappeared..

Our housekeeper (who's lived here her whole life) asked what we use just yesterday. She took some of our boric acid home with her in a baggie. Someone else called us about the problem today. So everybody has them right now.

Acido Borico is available at Jara, and other hardware stores, no doubt.

martygraw wrote:We used to have the same little buggers all over, then about 3 years ago we started using a pest control Co. out of Guadalajara. Now, no more bugs of any kind.

Amezdy..3 660 42 87

We have them come every 4 months.

Can you tell me how much he charges for this service? Does he spray outside, inside, or both?

Tony_In_Mexico wrote:

martygraw wrote:We used to have the same little buggers all over, then about 3 years ago we started using a pest control Co. out of Guadalajara. Now, no more bugs of any kind.

Amezdy..3 660 42 87

We have them come every 4 months.

Can you tell me how much he charges for this service?  Does he spray outside, inside, or both?

Cost has been 450 pesos, includes, the inside, outside and casita

The ants we have in our newly-rented house look like what in my Texas childhood I learned to call 'sugar ants' ... very small, but not microscopic. However, that's probably a regional appellation, as Wikipedia thinks sugar ants are quite large and something else entirely. After a little research, I suspect what we have are pharaoh ants.

For those of you with near-microscopic ants, this article from a Bay Area newspaper just two months ago might be of interest: http://www.mercurynews.com/animal-life/ci_23799266/morris-tiny-ants-mounting-big-invasion-bay-area

Yep, that sounds like the ones.

Thanks for the link, Lobita. I'd say we have a positive ID on the little perps.

Thanks to all for the boric acid hints...this stuff worked like a charm. The pesky tiny bug population around our house has markedly decreased!
Gracias.