It’s the best time of the year – Spring and Summer! All the joys of beautiful weather and warmth come our way. With that, sometimes we get unwanted little creatures invading our homes. ANTS! One day you’ll look down and see a few crawling across your floor. The next day, you may see a trail of them. Before you know it, they’ve invaded your kitchen. Maybe they took over your backyard patio or your garage.
So, what do you do? You get out your trusty phone and Google it. “Home remedies for ants”. You get a slew of choices! One of them must work, shouldn’t it? Let’s look at the list:
White Vinegar
They say you can mix vinegar with water and spray it around where the ants are. It supposedly covers up the scent trails and then their tracking abilities are inhibited. Or better yet, the next time you mop the floor, put a little vinegar in the bucket. Aside from making your house smell awful, please don’t use this method as it interferes with professional ant exterminators.
Borax
You can make a mixture of borax (which is a mineral in many cleaning products), confectioner’s sugar and water and then put it in a shallow container with openings for ants. The ants will carry the sweet mixture back to their home. But, for effective ant control, you need to kill the queen. We recommend you avoid this method because it will also interfere with professional ant exterminators.
Pepper
Pepper’s strong odor will chase ants away, but it will not kill them. They say you should sprinkle it onto ant trails or mix with water and spray at your entry points. There again, you will not be successful killing the queen ant and should avoid crossing the efforts of a professional ant exterminator.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon will actually kill ants, unlike pepper. It also has a very strong smell which will repel the ants away, but for how long? Will they be coming back? You can almost bet on it. We recommend getting professional ant control.
Flour
They say you can “stop ants in their tracks” by sprinkling flour at the entry points. This is supposed to disrupt their pheromone trail. Sounds messy? It is. Effective? No. The ants will find another path to get in.
Citrus
Lemon, orange, lime and other citrus fruits have natural acids which mask ant scent trails – temporarily. Just keep spraying over and over again… or call a professional ant exterminator.
Sugar
Ants love sugar, so why not guide them out of your home with a sugar trail? Lead them right over to that compost pile. What could go wrong? Just that it doesn’t work.
Coffee Grounds
Another ant-repelling trick to try! Ants don’t like this scent either. Yet again, another obstacle for the professional ant control that you will eventually need to call.
The moral of the story is that you can try all of these home remedies only to find that they don’t work and you still have to call for professional ant exterminators. However, what you have accomplished is making their job more difficult by interfering with the natural patterns of the ant colony.
Contact American Pest Control at 702.382.6366 to discuss your ant issues and find out more about our ant exterminators!