With warmer weather the ants have come. This new place we have been renting since September seems to be wide open to them. They come in through the back porch door and right into the kitchen. They love all the food my little ones drop on the floor and they love the garbage can. Bringing pesticides into the home is not going to happen so when the ants start to arrive I have to find natural ways to get rid of them. I played this game for a bit at the tail end of summer last year and they kicked my butt… they and their friends the fruit flies. This year I am determined to kick them back to the curb.
Last year I mostly used a homemade Borax and maple syrup trap and that didn’t work very well. Vinegar worked for a short time and then they would be back. I wash my entire kitchen floor weekly with vinegar and they still came calling. This year I will try other methods and maybe change up my old methods a bit.
Natural Ant Deterrents
- Borax mixed with jelly/jam
- Vinegar infused with tea tree oil (will disinfect the kitchen as well)
- Cloves put near the entrance where they are coming in
- Sprinkle cayenne pepper, cinnamon, or black pepper at the entrance and along their typical “route”
- Cotton balls sprinkled with a minty essential oil or a citrus oil
- Baby powder/ chalk line at entrance
- Cucumber or Citrus peels near entrance
One thing that really seemed to work last week was spraying them with the Trader Joe’s Next To Godliness Multi-Purpose Cleaner. I bought the bottle awhile back and don’t use it much because I hate the smell. It is supposed to have Cedarwood and Clary Sage oils but it smells artifical to me. Anyway the ants don’t like it either. It killed the ones I sprayed and then they haven’t been back… but I need to clean the kitchen floor badly now so I imagine once it is washed away they might come back. It is still nice to have a fast, easy recourse though that is pretty natural.
How have you deterred ants from the home?
