Title : Keep Ants Out Naturally
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Keep Ants Out Naturally
Every spring a troop of ants manages to invade my house and diligently snake their way through the kitchen and bathrooms, doing what ever it is that they do. Often times people having this issue go the preventative route. You try to block every point of access, but if you live in a big old building, you know the folly of this plan. Ants, they are tiny, they are determined, and they will find a way in.
Why Do Ants Invade?
Why do ants come into one’s home? Their main target is food & water, and as they are mostly attracted by sticky and sweet substances. First off, keep a tidy kitchen, and pay extra attention to crumbs on the floor that might present a small feast for the little troopers. Also considered water like standing water, damp areas, dog and cat bowls, leaky plumbing, houseplants, ect.
So What Do You Do?
Refusing to use toxic repellents is a good idea, as the use of insecticide can be so dangerous for humans. Why would you want to spray toxic chemicals in your home? Yes, they are only meant to kill pests, and a dose lethal to a creature one-millionth of our size may seem innocuous, but poison is poison I just say no.
Natural Remedies That Kill or Fight Off Ants
Although I diligently use natural remedies, I will admit that sometimes certain ones just don’t work. But here are a bunch of all natural methods that have been tried and tested to past the PEST TEST!
Vinegar
Many people have reported that once they switched to using a vinegar/water solution for mopping their floors and cleaning their counters, ant problems vanished. Just fill a squirt bottle with plain old cheap white vinegar, and squirt it anywhere you see ants (kitchen counters, windowsills, etc) and let it dry. It’s non-toxic, won’t harm anything, and the smell will go away in just a couple of minutes. You can also pour it where the ants have their nests, not just to where they walk around. If you find their nest just pour about 0.5-1 L of white vinegar.
Cinnamon
Use ground cinnamon around where there are coming it. You can also spray cinnamon essential oil all around the doors, windowsills, floors, etc. to keep them from coming in. You can also use cinnamon oil to draw borders/barriers around everything with a Q-tip dipped in it. Ants won’t cross this.
It appears that this simple trick relies on the idea of disrupting the pheromone trail that ants rely on to navigate. And there are other natural remedies that can induce the same result such as citrus, vinegar, peppermint and coffee grounds all have their abilities. So if cinnamon isn’t your thing, try one of the other scent disruptors and hopefully, say goodbye to sharing your house with these annoying house guests.
Equal
If you follow my blog, you know one of the worst things we can ingest is artificial sweeteners. Now if you're like me, you used a lot of these little poison packets before you got wise, and switched to a healthier option. So what did you do with all of those left over junk sweeteners? Well most people I find keep them, thinking that one day you will have a house guest that will use them or maybe you will donate them to your local food drive. But do you really want to poison your house guests or the less fortunate? Surely not. So, if you still have artificial sweeteners laying around, use them to kill ants by mixing Equal packets with apple juice. The sweetener is neurotoxin to the ants, and they won't touch it without adding the sweet apple juice. Scary that people still use these in their coffee.
Lemon Juice
Above I mentioned the use of citrus fruit juice, that can work much like the cinnamon does. Just spray around the openings with pure lemon juice as something about the acid messes up their sense of tracking.
Peppermint
Many people have had success with peppermint essential oil around windows and doors or any entries. Plus your house then smells wonderful. Please note, if ingested, the peppermint plant and its oil could potentially cause harm to your cat. Cats are especially sensitive to peppermint oil, and effects such as gastrointestinal upset, central nervous system depression and even liver damage could occur if ingested in significant quantities. Some peppermint oil formulations also contain aspirin derivatives, which could result in additional toxicity. Furthermore, if inhalation of the volatile oil were to occur, aspiration pneumonia may be possible. Based on this, I would not recommend using peppermint leaves or oil in areas where your cat is allowed access.
Borax, Water & Sugar
Others have used borax, sugar, water and say it really works. Make a thick syrup or thin paste with water, sugar and borax, then spread it on little pieces of thin cardboard or stiff cardstock and place them near where they are coming into the house. They’ll eat it and take it back to their colony. The paste will dry up in a couple days, so you’ll have to make more. But you should only have to do it twice before they're gone.
ONE WORD OF WARNING: Borax does need to be kept away from pets and small children, but it is relatively safe beyond that as it is only toxic if you eat it. Place it somewhere where the kids and the cats can't reach it, but the ants could.
Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous Earth (often referred to as "DE") is an off white talc-like powder that is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton or "water plants". When sprinkled on a bug that has an exoskeleton (such as bed bugs, ants or fleas) it compromises their waxy coating so that their innards turn into bug jerky. But it doesn't hurt mammals, so people and pets can eat it. And we do eat it! It's in lots of grain based foods because lots of grains are stored with diatomaceous earth to keep the bugs from eating the grain.
DE works well, just use food-grade, not swimming pool grade. Sprinkle it around the perimeter of your home, or even safely sprinkle it inside where you see them. Do not wet the DE or it will not work. FYI, some people report that DE isn’t an instant kill but should resolve the problem within a week or so, while others report that
sprinkling DE around the perimeter of their house & kitchen seemed to have worked with immediate results.
Chalk
This is funny, but did you know that ants will not cross a line drawn in chalk? When a friend of mine drew a line around a window in her home where ants were coming in, it kept them at bay. Other say that their grandparents had really good results with the line of chalk, as they used powder that you can get at home improvement stores. This is super convenient because it comes in a squeeze bottle so it’s easy to apply.
Baking Soda & Powdered Sugar
Ants carry an acidic substance with them for protection. So if you mix baking soda and powdered sugar in a plastic lid set in strategic places, you will cause a little volcanic science experiment to take place inside their bodies. Over the course of several days, it will make a huge difference.
Coffee Grounds
Lots of people have also had good success with used coffee grounds. This is a great way to recycle, just put it in the cracks where the ants congregate outside, and they will never return. This technique doesn’t kill them, it just makes them move homes. Put them in your flower beds outside and you will see them build new homes a small distance away.
Cornmeal
Some people use corn meal with fantastic results. First you'll want to find the ant hill, or at least determine where they are entering your home. Once you do, pour some cornmeal in a plate nearby, and watch from time to time to make sure the ants are taking it back home with them.
This works because ants are attracted to corn meal and treat it as food, but they can't actually digest it, causing them to slowly starve. It won't kill a colony as quickly as poison, but it's incredibly cheap, and completely safe to use in a house with pets or small children.
Cream of Wheat
Cream of wheat is fabulous as they eat it & it expands then they explode! Put out cream of wheat, but don't cook it, use it raw. The ants eat it and it expands in their stomachs, killing them. As with all methods, put the bait food where the ants are appearing.
Black Pepper
This is a nonlethal, poison free, cheap, and safe way to get rid of ants. Just sprinkle the black pepper where you see them congregating and watch them scatter. It’s safe to use in your cabinets, on windowsills, near your pets and kids, around food, etc.
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