“This information has been floating around on the Internet since 2007, but seemed to regain momentum starting in December of last year,” said Wizzie Brown, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management program specialist in Travis County.The pitch in the widely circulated e-mail is that club soda, a popular kitchen-cabinet stain remover, is an “environmentally friendly” way to kill a fire ant mound. All it takes is two cups and the ants are gone, the theory being that carbon dioxide from the club soda displaces oxygen and suffocates the bugs.
“What it doesn't say is that the treatment is ineffective, unless you happen to drown a few fire ants in the process,” said Brown, who has tested club soda among other fire ant home remedies.
“Long story short, it didn't work,” she said. “Observations and statistics from the trial showed no evidence of any type of control as a result. Pouring club soda onto a fire ant mound did not lead to the ants dying a horrendous death; it did, however, produce lots of impressive bubbling action.”
"Knowing the pest control industry like I do..If club soda really worked, a new pest product would be created and marketed as something like "Ant-Away CS" (Club Soda). It would be in all of the major hardware type stores and have an expensive price tag. By the way, grits do not work either! ~ Jim
"Knowing the pest control industry like I do..If club soda really worked, a new pest product would be created and marketed as something like "Ant-Away CS" (Club Soda). It would be in all of the major hardware type stores and have an expensive price tag. By the way, grits do not work either! ~ Jim
