8 Sure Ways to Get Rid of Ants
8 Sure Ways to Get Rid of Ants
It’s that time of year again for the pesky little ants. Don’t waste your money on those expensive and chemical filled treatments because here are some sure ways to stop those ants. Depending on your ant situation I have a solution for you. I have indoor and outdoor solutions that really do work. Here are 8 Sure Ways to Get Rid of Ants! Be sure to read to the bottom because I’ve listed my favorite recipe last. 😉
8 Sure Ways to Get Rid of Ants
Lemons – Ants hate lemon juice. Simple squeeze fresh lemons in a spray bottle and spray it in every opening in your home. Makes the house smell nice too.
Cinnamon – You can use almost anything with cinnamon in it. We spray cinnamon essential oil around the opening doors, windows and cracks. You can use ground cinnamon too. Just sprinkle it in the ants path! We use a Q-tip and draw a border anywhere we see ants and they will not cross the border! Cinnamon also makes the house smell nice and it’s easy to clean up.
Chalk – draw a border anywhere you don’t want ants to cross and it really does work! You can even buy the powdered chalk at your local hardware store. The powdered chalk makes it really easy to draw a line anywhere you want the ants away from.
Baking Soda and Powdered Sugar – You can mix equal parts of baking soda and powdered sugar and place it in a plastic lid anywhere you see ants.
Coffee Grounds – I love to place coffee grounds in and around the garden bed to help keep those pesky ants away. This method will not kill them but will repel them to another area.
Cornmeal – this is a safe method for killing ants especially if you have kids and pets. Sprinkle cornmeal around the perimeter of the home, windows, cracks and food areas. You will need to monitor any disrupted cornmeal and add more when needed. The cornmeal works because it disrupts the way they digest and eventually starts to kills them within a couple of days. Allow a few weeks for the cornmeal to completely kill your ant problem. It’s not the fastest method but it does work.
Vinegar – Yes straight up Vinegar! The cheap white vinegar works best! If you find the ant nest just pour about 0.5 to 1 L of vinegar on it and Voila! Those pesky ants will never return there. This method works best if you only have one or two little nests.
Borax – We use Borax, sugar and water around the house. This is my absolute favorite method to kill ants. You can add some peanut butter. If we see a big ant problem this is the treatment we go for first! This works so well that we do this every year.
Recipe for a natural Borax Ant Killer Recipe
Mix Borax with granulated sugar at a 1:3 ratio. (example 1 cup Borax with 3 cups of granulated sugar or 1 tablespoon Borax with 3 tablespoons of sugar)
Add enough water to make the mixture a soupy texture. The water amount is not as important because over time it will become a syrup.
Add about 1 teaspoon of peanut butter to the mixture. Mix well.
Now you need to find some plastic containers to fill the mixture with. You will want to poke holes just above the mixture level in the container. Tip: I use old margarine and cream cheese containers because they are compact and easy to poke holes in too.
Now you will want to place the containers in and around the areas where you see the ants. You can use these traps inside and outside the house. I find most of our ants near water sources outside our house but I also place them near trash cans, flower beds etc…
The reason this mixture works is because the ants love this sugar mixture. This mixture is toxic to the ants that ingest it immediately. Some ants will carry the mixture back to the colony where other ants will ingest the bait and die. You will notice dead ants within about 2 days of setting the mixture and it usually kills most of them with in two weeks of placing the trap.
Note: Borax is toxic! Do not place this in an area where your family pet and access it or take the lid off.
This Borax Ant Killer Recipe is basically the same thing as Terro Liquid Ant baits which is known to work well.
Now there are those times where you do need something a bit stronger. Here’s another solution for Do It Yourself Pest Control I’ve used for years because of scorpions, centipedes, spiders and other bugs that gross me out!
