- Get up early and watch them. How are they getting inside? Replace old caulking.
- Lay spices they don't like in their path (chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, cinnamon or dried crushed peppermint leaves.) I'm not sure how effective this is though, since ants are smart and can walk around such obstacles.
- Bay leaves in cupboards deter many insects with their scent (including Indian Moths.)
- Clean surfaces with a solution of vinegar and water (1:1 ratio) or spray lemon juice and water along windowsills and doorways. Ammonia may be an ant deterrent.
- If ants are attacking your outdoor plants mix coffee grounds into the soil. Coffee grounds are a treat for plants that like an alkaline soil-- azaleas, rhododendrons, holly. But avoid spreading coffee grounds (or cocoa mulch) outside if you have dogs--caffeine can kill them and they'll lick it off their paws.
- Vaseline rubbed around the bottom of your pet's outdoor water and food bowls might help keep ants from crawling into the kibble.
- From childhood experience--never, ever, leave a sticky, unwrapped lollipop inside your wet towel bag just inside the front screen door.
- If ants are a problem in your neighbourhood, a paved driveway is better than stone interlock. Interlock paving stones are leveled with sand. Sand is brushed into spaces between the individual stones. Regular maintenance (to keep weeds from sprouting between the stones) involves--sprinkling sand! So you'll have a lot of sand--a construction material for anthills.
- "....keep food safely stored."
...anywhere in your home, call a professional for evaluation. You could have carpenter ants, and this has to be dealt with quickly, before the structural integrity of your home's foundation is compromised.
The presence of carpenter ants will alert you to damp, rotting wood around your house. Our cedar deck started rotting under the BBQ mat and the ants alerted us to the decay. Replacing the rotting wood and fixing the source of the moisture problem should alleviate the ant problem.
What are the Best Ant Traps?
Of commercial ant traps we've used, by far the best are the inexpensive little tins with the holes you poke in the sides with the tip of your screwdriver. There is borax mixed with something appealing to ants inside these tins.
Or do-it-yourself: mix borax and peanut butter and put it in a sealed yogurt container with little holes punctured in the sides, near the bottom of the container.
But if you can afford them, the little tins are much neater-- and probably safer if you have peanut-butter-loving pets around. Also, if you need to use these outdoors, you don't want to poison chipmunks or attract raccoons (they will take the lids off your yogurt containers.)
Ant traps require some patience, because you actually have to let the ants go inside them, and carry out the poison bait to their ant homes to kill the colony. It is sometimes hard to sit back, watch and "allow" the ants to carry this poison food through your home.
The more expensive clear brown plastic ant traps with the two-toned bait didn't work for me. For some reason, ants in my area were not attracted to these.
Avoid using ant traps outside, if you can. It's important to keep "nice" native ants resident on your property so that migrating fire ants won't move in. (Refer to my post on fire ants).
Most Horrific Literary Ant Attack
