best natural way to get rid of indoor ants?

[LD92599]

I'm discovering tiny black ants on my hardwood on the 1st floor in the living room. I vacuumed to make sure there's no crumbs etc and they are still around.

Any "natural" ideas before i call an exterminator? I couldn't sleep last night much (even though on the 2nd floor!) because i felt so "itchy!"

TIA!

Laura
Mom to Will

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[MarisaSF]

In our old place, it was pretty easy to find the holes out of which the ants were coming. We stuffed them with cinnamon, which worked well. I'd heard they won't walk over cinnamon.

[LD92599]

I'll try that later! We did throw out our area rug since 1) I've been wanting a new one and 2) it's garbage day!


Laura
Mom to Will

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[Tondi G]

I heard the cinnamon trick too. I also heard almost any powder will do cause they don't like to walk over powders.

[jeminaal]

We were having trouble with ants too. What worked best for us was using "Ant Bait stations", where we leave them in various parts of the house (i.e., bathroom, kitchen floor, hallway) and the ants go into the stations, pick up the "food" and take it back to the queen and the nest. The ants are all over the area when they find the "food" but they are GONE w/in 2-3 days.

Some ant bait stations have gel in them and some have granules and it depends upon the season as to what kind of food they'll go for. At first we tried bait stations with granules and the ants could care less, but then when we bought the gel bait stations the ants devoured them! They were all gone in a couple of days. Thank goodness!

We bought the gel ant bait stations at Home Depot.

Good luck...I know how you feel. I hate ants in my home too.

Jeanette
(formerly known as jeanmick, member since Feb 2003)

DD Born Christmas Eve
DS Born Valentine's Day

[mudder17]

We just recently had a bunch invade our house and I used a solution of white vinegar and water with peppermint oil and sprayed them. Then we figured out where they were coming from and I sprayed the area and left it for awhile. It seems to have done the trick. I'd have tried cinnamon, but didn't have any handy at the time.

Good luck!

Eileen

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[jeminaal]

Wanted to add the link to the gel bait stations we used for anyone interested:

http://www.terro.com/dev/products.php?product=liquid_ant_bait

My DH and MIL say that using a mixture of sugary syrup + borax (a common household cleaner) can also be used as a gel bait for the ants.

We were having SO much trouble with ants invading every part of our house for two months long. We tried cinnamon and spraying but it didn't work. DH ended up doing a lot of research in how to get rid of them from the house. He learned that using sprays in places where they come in works for only a short time and doesn't completely get rid of them. They usually find ways of coming back very quickly. DH read that the type of ants we had in our house initially send out about 2% of their workers to look for food and spraying them made them panic, thus splitting the colony and forcing more ants to go out to look for food. Yuck.

Getting rid of the queen and the nest, which may be hidden deep in the house somewhere, is the sure-fire way of stopping them from coming in. Short of getting an exterminator we found that using these baits worked the best for us. It's been 3 days since our last invasion and there hasn't been an ant seen anywhere (crossing fingers).


Jeanette
(formerly known as jeanmick, member since Feb 2003)

DD Born Christmas Eve
DS Born Valentine's Day