ants everywhere! sa kitchen, sa sala, sa lamesa… kulang na rin pati sa kwarto! anobah!
how to get rid of ants at in my house?!?
I tried the soap solution but it was never effective. That is spraying the ants with laundry soap + water. Ants go away for a while but then they would form another line to march on. Busit na ants yan! I know, I know they are important to the cycle of life and the ecological balance but these tiny crawlers are keeping me insane! I have slight intolerance to ants.. oh aside from the fact that their bites can be pretty nasty, I sneeze non stop whenever I smell them. I have to get rid of them fast!
And Mr. Google got the answer.. here are some of How to Get Rid Of Ants At Home Tips that I found on the internet (the safe ones):
Keep your house clean. This is by far the most effective and safest trick to get rid of ants. Always make sure that your house is free of left overs, sweets, sticky spills and anything that can attract ants. If you can’t wash your dirty dishes right away, rinsing it is helpful. Make sure that containers, specially the one with sweets (sugar, jam etc) are tightly closed and that ants cannot enter. Always wipe and sweep your kitchen, one a day at least.
If ants is already inside, using vinegar solution can do the trick. Just mix water + vinegar (50-50) and spray it on the ants. These crawlers hate the smell of vinegar and the acid it also removes the scent of the ants.. if you don’t know it yet, that is the reason why they march like that, ants follows the scent that each of them leave as they crawl. Removing the scent will disturb their tracking sense. I have tried it and is very effective, I had to apply it almost everyday for one week before I got rid of the ants.
Herbs and Spices such as cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne pepper is another safe technique, no harmful chemical involve. The strong scent of the herbs keep the ants away (in some cases, as well as other insects). Sprinkle some of the herb where you have seen ants crawling.
Coffee ground has been said to be effective too as ants hates the smell (and I have read even cats! oh…. now I can get rid of the cats popping on my garden!)
Get rid of ants by killing the colony with the use of boiling water. Years ago, I used this technique and it was very effective! I have learned that in order to get rid of ants, you have to kill the queen that produces more ants.. and the only way you can do that is to look for it in their colony (which can be pretty tough).. so what I did was look for their colony and poured boiling water and they were gone.
Laundry Soap Solution is another solution but was not effective on my case. I guess the principle still lies on removing the scent trail.
Sprinkle Talc Powder or use chalk. The talc is a natural ant repellent.
For more How to Get Rid Of Ants At Home tips, here are the links where I got some of the tips mentioned above and other tips that you might want to try:
- http://frugalliving.about.com/od/doityourself/tp/Get_Rid_of_Ants_Cheaply.htm
- http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Ants
- http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Ants-Naturally
ants photo from http://insects.about.com
Daddy Allan says
July 11, 2012 at 2:13 pmThanks for this information Peh. Ants are getting into my son’s cabinet too. I know that cinnamon is very effective same with coffee. I think I have to try this two first before the others. hehehe