We've recently had a bit of ant problem in our house, and no matter how much Terro ant bait we use, the little bastards keep finding new ways in. Every day this week, at approximately 7:15am — right when I'm hopping in the shower! — a swarm of several hundred (no exaggeration!) little black pavement ants have poked their way into my bathroom. By 7:35 or so, most of them are gone without a trace, leaving just a few little drones and some burrowing debris in their wake. But the next morning, the full-scale assault is back again.
To be fair, we live in a garden level. So it doesn't matter how clean we keep things inside; if they're burrowing in from the street level, they're going to find a way down to our place eventually. Even if we've already eradicated a nest or two.
Since the ant bait alone wasn't enough, I decided to head to the local hardware store (True Value > Ace in this 'hood, if ya know ya know) and pick up some caulk, to make sure the little pests can't keep borrowing through the cracks. But I wasn't sure which kind of caulk would be the most effective in blocking out the little bastards. Do I want silicone caulk? Almond? White? I had an opened vial of Liquid Nails in the freezer, but that's not exactly the same…
So I did a little searching, on Ye Olde Interwebs: What kind of caulk should I use? And this was the best guidance that I found.
I guess I should have seen that, uhhh, coming.
Previously: How-To: Make cheap castable silicone from caulk
