Most homeowners know the struggles of getting rid of ants and keeping them away. While ants probably won’t harm the people and pets inside your home, they’re a huge nuisance. It’s important to understand how to solve any ant problems and keep these pesky insects away for your own peace of mind.
Causes of Ant Infestations
The weather has a huge impact on ant infestations. Wet conditions are likely to send ants looking for shelter in your home. Most other ant infestations will occur during the hot, dry seasons, typically in August and September. In general, ants will usually come in when it’s too hot, too wet, or too cold out, and they’re looking for food and water.
Unfortunately, ants are prolific pests that quickly bring other ants into your home. Once inside your home, some ant species, like carpenter ants, will create nests. Other ant species will continue to bring additional ants into your home for shelter and food. Regardless of the ant species, ants are undesirable tenants that you don’t want to stick around, or you could end up paying for an ant exterminator.
If you’ve noticed these bugs in your home, you’re probably wondering how you can get rid of ants (and keep them away). Sometimes it can feel like a fruitless effort because ants are stubborn pests that are difficult to get rid of, but it’s possible if you follow the below advice.
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How to Get Rid of Ants
There are many control methods to keep ants away from your home, kill ants, and set up ant control to prevent ants in the future. These include ant exclusion, insecticides, ant baits, and ant repellents.
Let’s go over some specific steps that you can use to keep ants out of your house. Getting rid of ants may require using multiple methods, so I recommend working with several of these to start your DIY pest control efforts.
Ants come to our homes in search of food, water, and shelter. Start by using airtight containers to seal off food sources in your home so ants can’t eat your food and contaminate it. Then, check your home for leaks in your plumbing and faucets. Fix any leaks you find immediately to remove water sources for pests, such as ants, roaches, and fleas.
Since it probably contains things that ants like to eat, take out your trash regularly and make sure that the lids on your trash cans are tight and sealed. You should do this for both your indoor and outdoor trash cans.
Then, hose down the area around the trash cans weekly to wash away the pheromones that ants leave behind. Other ants use these pheromones to guide them to your home, so erase these pheromones regularly to prevent this from happening.
Any openings in your home allow ants and other pests to easily enter your home. Examine the entire perimeter of your home for possible openings. Silicone caulk is ideal because ants can chew through regular caulk.
Look for cracks and crevices around window sills, baseboards, entryways, door frames, dryer vents, and near any water pipes or outdoor faucets. Also, check electrical, telephone, or cable TV wiring for possible entry points. Eaves, lights, chimneys, and vents on your roof are other prudent places to look for entry points.
Once you’ve identified any entry points, fill these cracks and crevices with silicone caulk to stop ants from coming in.
Carpenter ants are notorious for building nests in trees and may use trees to access houses and buildings. Regularly trim any tree limbs that touch your home to prevent carpenter ants from entering your home this way.
One granular insecticide that is widely recommended is the Talstar PL Granule, which is a great way to control ants effectively. These granules typically come in 25-pound bags and will need to be spread around the yard with a hand spreader. To use, fill the hopper on the spreader and set the size of the opening. I recommend starting it at three, which is in the middle of the sizes offered on the sliding switch. These granules are water-activated.
Once water touches them, they melt and spread out to create a band of insecticide. It’s recommended that you do this once a month, especially during warm months of the year, to get ongoing protection from ants.
Insecticide ant sprays are helpful to use near entry points in your home. If you find out where ants are entering your home, use an insecticide spray to prevent ants from entering.
If you find ants inside your home, place ant baits around your home. Unlike other pest baits, ant baits don’t lure ants into a trap. However, the bait is toxic and attracts ants. When worker ants eat the ant bait, they bring it back to the ant nest and perform a process called trophallaxis. Once back in the ant nest or colony, the worker ants will regurgitate the partially digested, toxic bait and feed it to other ants, larvae, and the queen ant. Since the ant bait is toxic, this will kill any ant that consumes it, effectively killing the entire colony.
I recommend using the Terro Liquid Ant Bait, which smells like food and attracts ants easily. The active ingredient in this ant bait is sodium tetraborate decahydrate, also known as borax. Borax will quickly kill many species of ants like Pharaoh ants, odorous house ants, pavement ants, carpenter ants, fire ants, and other types of ants.
You can also place ant traps near areas of high activity. The ants will get stuck in the liquid and die. Place these bait and traps near ant trails you’ve seen, near entry points, near nests, and ant hills for the best results.
Ants are attracted to easy access to food sources and water. If you leave pet food out, this will attract ants to your home. Ants will happily go after any crumbs, spilled substances, or leftovers left on the counter. Make sure to safely store food. You’ll also want to sweep, vacuum, and mop your floors often to pick up food crumbs that pests may go after.
Natural Ways To Get Rid of Ants
There are a few effective natural remedies to take care of ants on your property or inside your home as well.
Diatomaceous Earth
Use diatomaceous earth (DE) as an all-natural repellent against ants. DE is made from microscopic marine plants, also known as diatoms. It has razor-sharp edges, which slice open the exoskeletons of insects, including ants, and end in death. Most of the time, DE comes in powder form and can be spread finely across entry points, like window sills, and along ant trails that you’ve come across. My recommendation for DE is Harris Diatomaceous Earth, which comes in a 21-pound bag and includes a powder duster that allows you to quickly spread the fine powder across your home without creating a giant mess.
Essential Oils
Try essential oils to disrupt the chemical trail of pheromones that ants leave behind. By disrupting the pheromone trail, you make it difficult for ants to find their way into your home. Essential oils are created by squeezing, steaming, or grinding plants to release the oils within the plant fibers. The resulting distillate is highly concentrated and is often used for household cleaning products, pest control, and aromatherapy.
Popular essential oils for pest control include peppermint oil, lemon, lavender, eucalyptus, lime, and lemon oil. I recommend diluting one of these oils and placing the mixture into a spray bottle. Spray this scent around your home and entry points to disrupt the scent trails that ants follow into your home. You can also soak cotton balls in the mixture and leave them near areas of high ant activity.
Vinegar
Create a DIY equal-part mixture of white vinegar and water in a spray bottle, a kid and pet-friendly solution. I suggest spraying this near food items kept on your countertop and in cracks and crevices where ants may be entering your home.
Boric Acid
Use boric acid to kill ants. Boric acid is a natural ant killer that isn’t toxic for humans but is highly effective against ants. Try mixing boric acid in water and sugar to create a trap that will lure ants and kill them. Place this mixture near ant trails. Once they climb in, they will die, or they’ll escape and take the boric acid back to their colony, effectively killing off other colony members.
Cayenne Pepper
Try cayenne pepper (or chili pepper) to deter ants. Ants widely hate cayenne pepper and black pepper. Identify the ant infestation problem and spread cayenne pepper or black pepper around the source.
What Attracts Ants?
Ants are primarily attracted to three things in our homes: water, food, and shelter. If they find all three in your home, they will turn to reproduction and expand the infestation in your home.
Ants are incredibly persistent about finding water and food, particularly during hot and dry weather. Ants usually eat meat, fats, sugar, sweets, starches, vegetables, and even left-out pet food. Certain ant species, like pavement ants, will also feed on honeydew, which is produced by aphids.
Ants are tiny critters that only need a space that a piece of notebook paper can fit into to enter your home, which is why physical exclusion methods are so crucial to preventing an ant infestation. Certain ant species will make nests in wall voids in your home, attic, crawl space, or attic, especially if your crawl space has a pier and beam foundation. Large potted plants in your home can also attract ants because they like to nest in the plant’s soil.
Another factor in ant shelter is the weather. Heavy rain soaks the ground and forces ant colonies to look for higher ground to avoid drowning. During heavy rain, your home will look like a haven for these pests. Drought will drive ants and other pests inside to look for water sources and food to prevent them from starving during these intense seasons.
Final Thoughts on Ant Control
Ants can be difficult to get rid of, which is why preventative measures are always the best way to avoid ant infestations. However, using the methods discussed in this article can help you deal with ants inside your car and home.
I recommend starting with insecticide granules in your yard and using silicone caulk to seal cracks to prevent ants from entering your home physically. Deep cleaning, such as cleaning with essential oils and vacuuming up food crumbs regularly, is also key to preventing pest infestations.
Getting rid of ants and keeping them away is a time-consuming but worthwhile process. If your ant problem becomes too big to handle, don’t hesitate to call a professional pest control service for help.
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FAQs About Keeping Ants Away from Your House
There are many natural ways to keep ants away. Mix a few drops of peppermint essential oil (or tea tree, lemon, or citrus oils) with water and spray affected areas. You can do the same with a solution of equal parts vinegar and water.
You can also sprinkle ground cinnamon or diatomaceous earth, or leave coffee grounds, cucumber peels, orange peels, and lemon juice near where you have seen ants. These are all natural repellents that will help keep ants away.
Dish soap doesn’t kill ants, but it’s effective in cleaning pheromones from ant trails. Using dish soap to clean areas where you’ve seen ants prevents ants from knowing to travel there again.
While many effective pest control methods are toxic, there are many natural methods of pest control that are effective as well. The most effective natural pest control method is using diatomaceous earth (DE) to kill pests. DE works by penetrating the exoskeletons of insects, causing them to dehydrate and die. Using a duster, dust DE in areas of pest traffic. DE works best in areas with low moisture.
