Exterminate ants out of the house and garden yourself | 8 tips
Do you suffer from ants in your house or garden? This is not only annoying but also unhygienic. Ants in the house walk on the floor from food source to food source. They walk with their paws all over the floor. It is therefore advisable to avoid nuisance from these vermin. Prevention is simple, as it is usually a matter of cleaning and storing, so that no attractive leftovers of food remain. If you are too late with this, then there are a number of simple home garden and kitchen methods with which you can combat the ant-infestation.
Tips 1 to 4 are aimed at repelling ants from the garden. Tips 5 to 8 are more focused on chasing ants out of the house. The last tip is the most animal unfriendly method.
Ants in the garden
TIP 1: Tidy up rotten wood in the garden
In the garden you will mainly find ants between dry leaves and in rotten wood. To prevent ants from nesting in these, it is best to remove this kind of ‘waste’ from the garden as soon as possible.
TIP 2: Chase away ants naturally with fragrant plants.
If you want to keep ants out of the garden in a nature friendly way, you can buy certain plants and place them in the garden in places where you suspect ants. These plants have an unpleasant smell for ants. Ants stay out of the immediate vicinity of:
- Tomatoes
- Africans
- Lavender
- Chives
- Cross Currency
TIP 3: The smell of coffee grounds or pepper in the garden
Sprinkling old-fashioned coffee grounds or pepper into the soil of the garden can also be an effective way of chasing away ants (and other animals). These odours distract them from their own familiar scent trail to the food source.
TIP 4: Place copper in front of the entrance to the house.
Outside in the garden ants usually don’t do much harm, but how do you prevent them from walking inside? You can make sure they don’t cross the threshold of the house by placing a piece of copper wire or coins (of 5 cents) in front of the threshold. Ants prefer not to walk over copper.
Ants in the house
TIP 5: Cleaning up food in the house
The simplest way to keep ants out of your house is to make sure the house has nothing attractive to them. Ants come after leftover food, especially when it comes to sweets. Think of crumbs on countertops, on tables, around wastebaskets and leftovers in glasses. So make sure that food is always stored away. Keep the kitchen clean and tidy, also in other rooms, always immediately.
TIP 6: The smell of vinegar, a child-friendly way.
Another simple, safe and child-friendly way to fight ants is through vinegar. Sprinkle the walking routes of the ants with (possibly diluted) vinegar. The smell of vinegar is so strong that it drowns out the smell of their own secretions. This causes the ants to lose their fixed route to the food source. The vinegar smell is even so unpleasant for them that they prefer to stay away from it.
TIP 7: The smell of talcum powder
Ants do not like fragrant talcum powder. If you have seen ants and you think you know what their presumed fixed route is, you can sprinkle this powder there. This light soft powder blows quickly, so you will have to repeat this a number of times.
TIP 8: Ant boxes, not animal friendly
If the house-garden and kitchen methods and the somewhat friendly ways of fighting ants do not work, you can switch to the unfriendly method, such as anthill boxes. At DIY stores and supermarkets anthill boxes containing poison are for sale. With this poison on their paws, the ants walk back to their nest. This causes all ants to die in their nest. Watch out when using these decoy boxes: they can be dangerous for other animals and children.
