Children generally are more likely to feel harvester ant stings than adults. Fire ants produce a very painful sting which causes fiery itching, pustules, and sometimes more severe reaction including anaphylactic shock. An important step to any ant control program is to remove attractive food. Crumbs, grease, food scraps and other food is sought by foraging worker ants and they will return to areas where food is found. If ant-feeding bait is used as a control, it's important to remove other food so the ants concentrate on the bait and not the food.
Most nuisance ants nest outdoors.
Perimeter treatments with residual sprays applied around foundations can prevent many ants from foraging indoors. For more permanent control, destroy nests. Dusts usually are more effective on nests than sprays because dusts are more readily tracked into the colony. Slow-acting insecticides are most useful since they allow the forager to return the poison in the food to be fed around the colony, killing queens and young. Several brands of ant baits or ant traps are sold.