Dealing with ants shouldn't be musty and hurtful to your home and finances. (Photo Credit: CC BY-SA/Statiosvakt/Wikipedia)
Summer is almost here, and that means ants are already on their way into your home or apartment. Bug spray may be effective, but it isn’t cheap and it certainly isn’t safe, particularly around pets and small children. Here are some natural ways to get rid of ants in your home that are not only safe, but are bound to save you cash.
Keep up your cleaning routine
Don’t leave a welcome mat for ants by leaving food crumbs on the floor, table and counters. Do it right after cooking and/or eating. Use soapy water mixed with a mild detergent. The residual film will help keep ants away. Also, keep tempting sugar and syrup containers tightly closed. By cleaning all surfaces where ants might go to feast, you engage in pest control without taking the life of a single ant. Scout ants will look around, find nothing and return to the colony. Call it the pacifist’s way of dealing with ants, if you will.
Break out the herb
Ants are great at finding cracks in surfaces and using them as entry portals into your home. Since ants don’t like cinnamon, cayenne paper, mint, bay leaves, coffee grounds, cucumbers, black pepper, cloves or garlic, you can take any or a combination of these and sprinkle them in the cracks. With a few well-placed bay leaves, you can even drive off the stragglers in a way that doesn’t look exceedingly messy.
Soapy water keeps tempting aphids away
Aphids in your garden secrete honeydew, a sticky, sweet substance ants love to eat. If you are determined to keep ant hordes out of your garden, one way to go about it is to hose off your plants to get aphids off, then apply soapy water to the plants. So long as the soapy water remains, aphids will stay off – and hopefully the ants will, too.
Borax powder power
Borax cleansing powder, a naturally occurring mineral, is a great ant killer, if you’re out of solutions. Mix it with jam or syrup and it will stick to where you want it. The sugar in the jelly or syrup will draw the ant, but the Borax will get into their system and eventually kill them. After the deluge of ants, they should be gone for several months. Unfortunately, this can be a dangerous option if you have small children or pets.
Secrets of ant control
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