I suggest you put down some baby powder. ^^

Or pepper works, as well as apple cider vinegar. Ants go by scent and if something smells strong enough to disrupt their scent paths, they stay away.

Not sure, if you don't wanna spray, but I do know any household cleaner works just as good as RAID or anything for ants. Like Windex or something. Kills them dead and wipes their trail.

If you just vacuum, they can still smell their scent trail and will continue to come. You HAVE to spray something to cover up the trail so they get lost first, then vacuum up the dead ones and few stray living ones. You can try something environmentally friendly like vinegar or something with a strong scent. Vinegar is also used as a cleaning agent so you could try. And just leave the windows/doors open for a bit to air out and the vinegar smell should go away in time. Also it doesn't smell as bad as the ammonia in other cleaning agents.

But in my experience, Windex works well...or 409.

Burn them

A small bowl of sugar water, or better yet, car anti-freeze, and a little ramp up to it near where they mostly congregate. They'll either drown or will be poisoned.

Sucks. Good luck. <.< :-P

I would've said Bleach, but since you got a carpet, I'd say ... well, I dunno, I bleach them regardless of my Carpet, works a charm normally D:

why not just get a few ant traps? >_> they kill the entire colony most times, and they're not too expensive... i think they're like $3 for 4 or them at walmart?

I use windex..that seems to kill em deeead