Got ants? Ants are sometimes the worst little pests to deal with. I’ve heard stories of people going to sleep and waking up only to find tons of ants on their pillow. Some have stories of getting bitten so badly that they ended up with anaphylactic shock. Some have stories of their kitchens getting infested by these little creatures so badly that they can never leave food out in the open. If you’re like these people and you’re fighting an infestation so bad that even your sealed food isn’t safe in the pantry, then maybe you definitely need some of these ant extermination methods.
Ants are definitely something that you would instantly want to get rid of the moment that you start seeing them on your property. To be honest with you, even just seeing one and is often enough to set me on high alert. This is because singular ants don’t stay alone forever – they are usually scout ants. Lone ants are often the scavengers sent to find sources of food so that they can send the rest of the cavalry. That’s why when you start seeing ants, it’s a good idea to start finding ways to get rid of them. When you see a couple of ants it’s time to get ready to deal with more of them!
Are you ready? We are here to talk about all the different ant extermination methods – natural or otherwise.
Ant Extermination Methods
Any Adhesive Tape
Funnily enough, one of the best and simplest ways to get rid of ants is adhesive tape. If you’re starting to see some ants going for your cookie jar, it’s time to start building a moat. This method is particularly useful if you’re just trying to block off certain items or areas from ant infestation. How? Well, let me tell you. This is actually a method I sometimes do myself, when I have no other options. So I am actually glad that I get to share this with you!
Any adhesive tape can be used as one of the many ant extermination methods here. Don’t believe me? Try it next time you see ants around. Just take a strip of any adhesive tape and start placing it on the surfaces sticky side up. Watch as the ants begin to walk onto your tape and get stuck. You’ll have to replace the tape occassionally, and it does get kinda gross, but hey it’s effective!
For this method, I suggest using masking tape or “magic” scotch tape – ideally any tape that does not leave residue behind. That way, you don’t end up damaging whatever surface you are putting the tape on. I like this method because it’s easy, it’s cheap, and you’re incredibly likely to have a roll of tape sitting around your home.
Chalk
Okay, so – chalk is actually a surprisingly good ant repellent. In fact it works for slugs too! Plain chalk, the kind you use to write on chalkboards with, contains calcium carbonate. This calcium carbonate is actually made with the ground up shells of animals from the ocean. This item is what repels the ants and the slugs and keeps them away. So if you want to get ants away from certain areas, you can draw lines of chalk along your entryways. You can also draw a chalk circle around items like cookie jars and whatnot to protect them from the ants.
Of course, this method isn’t really ideal if you have dust sensitivities or asthma. So of course if you have that problem, you may want to try the other methods on this list instead.
It’s worth noting that certain companies also make special ant and cockroach-killing chalk. These particular products usually have some sort of active ingredient that kills the pesky little critters. If you plan on using these products, however, you do need to worry about your pets and your children. The toxic chalk can be harmful for them too, so only use it if you know they won’t go coming into contact with it.
Basters & Boric Acid
Surprisingly, basters will help you a lot with your little ant problem. No, not just the basters by themselves though. You will need boric acid, which you can easily find in hardware stores and even home/garden stores. But where does the baster come into play?
Easy – the basters are used as a method of delivering the boric acid into the crevices and cracks where you’ve seen ants come from. You can also use the baster to put boric acid into the corners that are hard to reach. Ants love to make their colonies in decaying wood. They also love making their homes in places that are moist. Basters are great to get in all the little crevices in the decaying wood.
It’s most noteworthy to tell you that boric acid is definitely toxic to your kids and to your dogs, so please do be careful. If you don’t want to expose your kids and pets to it, then you may want to look at the other ant extermination methods here instead.
Water..and Dish Soap
When I first heard about this method I was a little skeptical. After all, it’s water and dish soap – how effective could it be against these ants, right? Well surprisingly the truth is that it actually is quite effective and is one of the more harmless ant extermination methods on this list. If you have children or pets and you’re worried about them coming into contact with harsher chemicals, this might just be the method for you.
To do this, you can mix together one part of dish soap with two parts of water. Shake it up to make sure it’s well mixed after you have transferred it to a spray bottle. After that, you can use this spray bottle when you start seeing lines of ants, or even just one of them. After you spray them, they will stop in their tracks and basically begin to suffocate. You can wipe up the dead ants with a wet rag or some paper towels (but ideally, you want to use a rag to be more environmentally friendly). Keep the bottle so you can use it again next time. Luckily, this solution won’t really go bad quickly so you can use until the bottle is empty.
You know what else I like about this method? It’s super duper cheap! If you are on a budget then you can simply repurpose an old spray bottle. You literally don’t have to spend any money for this at all. And I’m sure you have dish soap too.
Oh, I forgot to mention that you can put out shallow dishes that have soapy water in them. Lure ants in with sugary stuff and you’ve got a nice trap.
Please do note that this method is great for killing groups of these critters, but you won’t be able to get the colony with it. Also worth noting is this method will work on cockroaches as well.
Vinegar and Water
Want a natural pesticide? I’ve got your back. All you need is a spray bottle, water, and vinegar. Mix one part of water with one part of vinegar, then put the solution in a spray bottle. Ants really – and I mean really – hate vinegar. So this solution makes for a cheap and easy pesticide that you can put together in moments. Once you have your solution ready, you can start spraying on any ants you see to kill them. Then just wipe em up!
You can use this solution not just as a pesticide, but also as a method of deterring the ants completely. Just spray on entryways and any other places that you see the the ants walking around at. You can even use this concoction to clean certain surfaces such as your windows, floors, and countertops. This is an effective way of cleaning, and at the same time it’s a great way to repel the ants.
Vinegar is stinky though, so be prepared to have that sour smell lingering around for a few minutes. Thankfully, once it’s dry you can’t really smell it anymore anyway.
Lemon Juice
The citric acid in the lemons and the juice also works fantastically to kill and repel these ants. This method is better if you are like me and you simply cannot stand the smell of vinegar – especially not sprayed into the air! To do this method, all you have to do is mix one part lemon juice to three parts of water. Put it in a spray bottle, then use it not just for getting rid of the ants, but also for cleaning.
Exterminators
Yep, of course I have to say that one of the best ways to kill ants is basically to hire an exterminator to do the job for you. Exterminators will definitely play a big role in clearing your home of the pesky invaders. Yep, this is certainly one of the best and most reliable ways to do it – so if you are struggling to fight a really bad infestation, just call your most reliable exterminators to help you in dealing with it. Of course, choosing the right exterminator is quite a hard thing to do. You need to make sure that the people you are going to hire are qualified. Otherwise, many compromises might be made about your safety and your health. If you’re wondering how to make sure that your exterminators are qualified, here is a quick guide:
Ask about their qualifications.
Don’t just accept their answer of “yes” either – ensure that you are asking them whether they are licensed. If they aren’t licensed, run far away and find a different company. You can double check licensing with your state’s pesticide regulation office. It’s important that the company you hire has a license and qualified technicians, otherwise you could be putting yourself and your family in danger.
Check their reputation
You can do this by looking at online reviews and feedback about their company. It’s important that you look at the company’s reputation to know whether they will be good for you to work with. Some people do not check at all to see what the company’s online reputation is. Then, once they hire them, they get an unfavorable experience. Once they want to leave a review and complain, they find that there are so many bad reviews of the company. Had they only gone to look, they would’ve known how bad of a choice the company would’ve been. Don’t let this happen to you – make sure you only hire the best companies! We live in the age of the internet… take advantage of it.
Are they safe?
This is a question that you should immediately be asking yourself before you even hire any sort of company. Reason being you always want to be sure that the company has safety in mind. Yours, your family’s, your pets’, your property’s, and of course, their technicians’. Ask them if they have any insurance policies that will cover any sort of incidentals such as workplace accidents. Ask them if their policy covers your property if something goes wrong. Check if they have any way to compensate you if you or your family’s health becomes affected by the pesticides that they use.
Ask If They Have Guarantees
Do they have any guarantees? Another thing you can look at when seeking an exterminator is whether they have any guarantees. By this, we mean if they will guarantee that their services are so effective that they would gladly come back to redo them if it turns out it didn’t work. This is a good way to make sure you are getting great value for money. Also a great way to know you aren’t wasting it!
Conclusion
We hope that this guide helps you in your quest to get rid of your pests. With the methods we’ve given you today, ants should simply be a thing of the past. Remember that you do always have the option of hiring an exterminator if things simply get way out of hand!
