Black Ants

Ants will not stay around if there is no water or wet wood for them so take away the water, fix the leaks, put stoppers in the sink drains, make sure there is no water in the crawl space. Then see what kind of bug juice the hardware store has. Good luck

Dan,
I just noticed you mentioned the foam insulation on the foundation. I have found the ants love to tunnel in this stuff if it is not treated (I think the treated stuff has borates in it). You may want to check it to see if you have provided a nice home for them (and a path to the underside of the siding)!

Bob

We have some last year when they took the tree down next to the house, I think they lost their home and migrated to the house, I baited and sprayed and finally I think we got rid of them all. You could see them going up the downspouts.

Bob, I'm thinking the same thing, by insulating on the outside with panels I created a space between the panels and the outside foundation, with easy access. I did seal the bottoms of the panels with a fat bead of canned foam, but if they can tunnel through it I'll have to approach that situation in the spring. I doused all the foam on the inside with Home Defense, and just got a gallon of it today. That stuff is cheap, I'll keep using it liberally. ( Only good use of the word liberal)
I set off another fog bomb in the garage area today, I'm not heating the front area, but I wanted to saturate the place as best as possible. Set one off in the crawlspace again too. The crawlspace dirt floor is bone dry, and I didn't see any apparent leaks when I was down there. I think there are a couple of hard to find roof leaks still. I found a big winged one all messed up and mercifully cremated it in the coal stove. I can't really tell how they're getting in, but it's gotta be through the baseboards and cracks near the door casings. I think I'm gaining on it...

Ants hate citric acid, I think it eats their feet. It is safe (well relatively, they make candy and medicine with it ) and effective. A little sprinse and they pack up and leave.

You mentioned Boric acid a few times. That is the defence of choice up here where we don't have teramites but carpenter ants are a big problem. I mix boric with sugar and put a band around my house every spring. The sugar attracts the ants to the boric acid. If you read the label of the commercially made ant baits that is all that is in them. Its importain not to kill the ants directly but let them carry the sugar/boric acid mix back to the nest where they distribute it to the rest of the colony and kill all