How to Get Rid of Ants

How to Get Rid of Pavement Ants

2009-09-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in previous articles, getting rid of ants is not as simple as laying out a bait because it depends on the type of ant that you're up against. Different kind of ants eat different things, which means different things will get them to take the bait back to their nests. The most common type of ant that you're going to face is known as the pavement ant. The pavement ant are those sometimes large black ants that usually make their way into your home between the cracks in your foundation. They can also be found making those sandy brown ant hills in your driveway or sidewalk. They're usually attracted to sweet and greasy foods, but they are also known to eat pet food if it's not stored properly in a secured container.

Pavement ants are not generally find in any specific geographic region. They can be found all across the US, from the Atlantic coastal region to the Midwest all the way to the West Coast. The colonies and their nests can actually grow quite large if left uninhibited. The easiest way to identify where their nests is coming from is to locate the trail of ants that's traveling between a food source and the anthill. On rare occasions you may be able to see the trail during the day, but your best bet for locating the trail of ants back to the colony is during the evening hours at night. You want to look for a signs of this ant not only in the cracks of your driveway but also around the foundation of your house as they tend to displace loose soil along the cracks if there are any in your foundation. Remember that the best way to get rid of ant hills is to get rid of ants, otherwise they'll just rebuild.

Your best bet for getting rid of pavement ants is to use a baiting technique. I would recommend Terro Liquid Ant Baits as it is designed to kill common household ants, of which the pavement ant is one. It's the most popular pest control item in Amazon, and for good reason. It simply works. You can check out the reviews here, and you'll see that they are overwhelmingly positive. They come pre-filled with a liquid bait in a no-leak container, and they're ready to use without any prep work. The technique to use for placement is to locate the trails of ants and follow them back to their anthill, and place the liquid bait traps near the opening of the hill so the forager ants to take the bait back into the nest. This will contaminate their food supply and eventually wipe out the entire colony of ants including the queen ant thereby leaving your home ant free.

Get Rid of Ants Organically

2009-08-27T16:11:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've provided you with a new tip for getting rid of ants. I'm always on the hunt for new and innovative ideas for dealing with ant problems, so I can post them on this blog for the various readers out there. Many of you have ants in your garden or they're invading your backyard. Sometimes it's not practical to boil 5 gallons of water and dump it on the ant hill, otherwise you'd risk killing the grass or plants in the nearby vicinity. This is counterproductive when you're trying to get rid of ants naturally.

I was reading an article about gardening naturally, and a reader submitted a tip to effectively eliminate ants from their garden. I thought it was so interesting and easy to employ that I thought I'd present the ideas to you as an effective way to get rid of ants organically. This little tip can be used as a very effective way to get rid of ants in the garden. It's so simple you only need two natural ingredients to do it. You actually may be growing this very vegetable in your garden right now!

First of all, you need to figure out where the ants are coming from. If there's one or two ants, you can't effectively administer ant control techniques. You need to identify the source. If you find the ant hill, great - you're on the right track. Once you've identified where ants are coming from, you'll need to "cook up" this very interesting ant control product.

Go to the grocery store and buy some onions (yes, onions). For a gallon of this ant fighting solution, I'd recommend 3 onions. Chop the onions up and boil it in a gallon of water. Once the onions start getting soft in the boiling water, mash them up with a spatula or some other equivalent utensil. Continue to boil for about 30 minutes, so that the onion can be effectively absorbed into the water. After that is complete, allow the onion water solution to cool. Run the solution into a strainer and into a bucket (or a milk jug) of some sorts. Here's where it gets interesting... set the solution out in the sun for a week or so. This will give the time for the onions in the solution to begin decomposing and will generate an awfully pungent smell. Don't directly sniff this, as you will probably pass out! Pour this decomposed onion solution around the anthill and say sayonara... or hasta la vista, baby! For the best results, start further away from the anthill and spiral inward towards the opening.

The best part of this ant extermination technique is that it is completely natural. There are no harmful chemicals to employ... just onions (which you might already be growing in your garden) and water (which you need to keep your garden alive). That's it... totally safe and a completely organic way to get rid of ants. Hopefully this method will be the end of your ant problems. If this doesn't completely eliminate your ant problem, try some of the other techniques mentioned on this site. Sometimes it takes a multi-pronged attack or one that is specialized towards a specific species of ant.

How to Get Rid of Ant Hills

2009-05-24T09:29:00.001-07:00

We've all run into them at one point or another - in your yard, in your garden, in your driveway, cracks in the sidewalk - you know what I'm talking about... dreaded ant hills that seem to pop up out of nowhere. Sometimes they show up over night. How can such small ants quickly dig out so much dirt? Well, they do... and now you're trying to figure out how to get rid of ant hills that plague your very existence.

Unfortunately it's not a simple matter of kicking it down with your feet and plugging up the hole. The ants will simply rebuild it, literally over night. You have to deal with the source and that's the ants themselves. There are several articles on this site already that outline how to get rid of ants. I recommend reading them all - it is extremely important that you determine what type of ant you're dealing with before you can properly treat it. What works well on some ant species does not work so well on others.

More specifically, when you're dealing with ant hills that are generally found concrete objects outdoors: curbs, driveways, landscaping, sidewalks, brick patios, etc... what you're probably facing is the pavement ant. Check out this article on how to get rid of pavement ants, and this should help you deal with your ant hill problem.

The best product right now on the market to deal with problematic ant hills is to purchase an ant control stake. The most popular by far is Grant's Kills Ants - Ant Control Stakes. There are many very positive reviews of this product on Amazon. The trick is to place these stakes in problematic areas, near the ant hills. They are safe to use in the garden and even indoors. The bait inside the stake is irresistible to the ants, so they take it back to the ant hill and spread the poison to the colony. Once the queen eats it, your ant problems will be over as the colony will no longer be able to reproduce and grow. Some people report results within days, so it's definitely something to consider. Each package comes with 10 stakes, which is definitely enough to get you started... you might want to consider picking up a couple boxes because they do need to be replaced periodically as the bait is removed by the ants. You want to make sure you provide a continous supply of food (poison) until the ants are completely eradicated. You don't want to run out of the stakes and have to wait 5 days for the next delivery giving the ant colony a chance to recuperate and multiply.

An alternate option (that doesn't always work) is to try pouring boiling water down the ant hill. The ants will not drown quickly - some can actually survive under water for as long as 14 days! The key is to be certain the water is boiling. Dead is the result of the scalding hot water, not drowning. That being said, an 8 ounce cup of boiling water will not suffice. Ant nests are very large and complex networks - an underground labyrinth - use about 3 gallons of water to effectively deal with the problem. This may kill grass or other nearby plants, so I recommend only doing it when the ant hills are in the middle of concrete surfaces such as your driveway. If you're looking for an ant control method safe to use near vegetation, your best bet really is to deploy ant control stakes.

Good Luck!

Get Rid of Ants with Cinnamon

2009-05-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a little quick tip to get rid of ants in your house. Unfortunately in an ant's pursuit of a new food source, it will inevitably make its way into your home. Sometimes it's because ants have been successful there already. Sometimes it's just because it happened to randomly wander through a crevis into your house. Whatever the reason, you have ants in your house and you need a quick fool proof way to get rid of them with a common household ingredient you probably already have: cinnamon.

Yes, cinnamon. Ants hate everything about the pleasant spice. Your best bet is to purchase a large container of ground cinnamon as you will want to apply it liberally. When you find an ant, try and trace it back to its source and how it entered your home. Sprinkle cinnamon at the point of entry. If you see ants wandering around your home, sprinkle some cinnamon directly on the ant. If it survives, it will return to its nest with traces of cinnamon and this will deter other ants from trying the same path as it is identified as hostile. If ants are entering your home through your door threshold, apply a long line of the cinnamon along the way, and that should effectively deter them. Any cracks or crevices or small openings that could provide access to your house should be treated with cinnamon.

That's pretty much it. Cinnamon is an effective home remedy to get rid of ants. Use it liberally and use it often and your house should be ant free in no time.

Get Rid of Ants with Cornmeal

2009-02-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

A lot of people are looking for home remedies to get rid of ants, which to me makes sense. Ants have been on this planet for at least as long as we have, so over the centuries the human race is bound to have a trick or two up its sleave. I'm sure a home remedy or two has been passed down through time to get rid of ants naturally and not use some potentially harmful chemical. Today I'm going to pass on one of those tricks to you: get rid of ants with cornmeal.

Yes, you read that right, cornmeal. Ants are often times characterized as hard workers, and they spend much of their time foraging for food. This is one of the reasons why they end up in your kitchen, or in any other room in your house especially if you leave food lying around. They are generally looking for food and will go as far as necessary at times to find it.

In order to get rid of the little ants that seem to be plaguing your yard or garden, we're going to spread cornmeal around the ant hill. This is doing a couple things here. We're giving ants the perfect food source by placing it in abundance near their ant hill. They will no longer need to forage beyond their ant hill because the food source is right there and available. When ants find food they release tiny chemicals that signal the other ants where to find food, i.e. right outside the front door. Simultaneously, when they bring it into the next and then proceed to eat the food, the ants' digestive system is unable to process the cornmeal when mixed with water causing their digestive tracks to rupture. Pop goes the ant, and it now becomes fertilizer for your lawn.

How's that for a nice tip to get rid of ants?

Getting Rid of Ants in the Garden

2008-09-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

It's just that time of the year... The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah! The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah! Is this the theme song you hear every time you walk out into your garden? And they all go marching down, down, down....

*sigh*

So you have ants in the garden and now you want to find out how to get rid of ants organically. The last thing you want to do is take a bite into that ripe tomato and have the taste tainted by some chemical insecticide. You need to beware what you buy at the local hardware store, especially since you need to get rid of the ants without an insecticide.

It seems like these ants sneak up out of nowhere. One day you have a beautiful garden and the next day you have more hills than the Appalachians. Ants have a function in the circle of life, but who wants ants in your garden? Have them complete the circle of life in your neighbor's garden! (DISCLAIMER: We do not recommend getting rid of ants by leaving a trail of food leading them into your neighbor's garden!)

First off, an ant here and there is not a bad thing. You know you have an ant problem when you walk into the garden and it looks like the dirt has suddenly grown legs all around. Or when little ant hills start popping up out of nowhere... so I'll get on with it already, how do you exterminate ants naturally...?

Try using this little home remedy: cornmeal and grits. You probably think I'm crazy - why would you want to feed the ants more food! Won't that just make the ant hills multiply... well, not with this stuff. The ants love to eat it because it's slightly sweet, but they can't properly digest it in their system. So what happens? The fiber builds up and eventually they die of starvation. It'll take about a week for this little trick to work. To help along the process locate the ant hills and frequently traveled paths and pour some small piles around it. This is probably the safest home remedy for getting rid of ants because it's food you would eat normally! It's completely nontoxic to humans or animals, yet it has the same effect as a toxic insecticide. Plus whatever the ants don't eat up will eventually work it's way into the ground as a nice little fertilizer. That's what I call killing two birds with one stone.

Leave the insecticides on the shelf, and take care of ants the natural way.

Get Rid of Ants Naturally: Diatomaceous Earth

2008-08-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Ants are invading your house and you're looking for a quick fix to naturally get rid of them. I understand where you're coming from... if you have children or pets, the thought of using some harsh chemical to get rid of ants seems a bit over the top. You don't want your little guy to turn into the Incredible Hulk because you're trying to kill ants, now do you? I didn't think so!

As you probably guessed, from the title diatomaceous earth is a quick and easy solution to dispatch those unwelcome guests quickly and efficiently. Diato-what? I thought you might say that, which is why I've come prepared to explain. I could throw a bunch of mumbo jumbo and talk about algae and crystalline and other scientific stuff. The quick and easy home mixture to get rid of ants is just to use baby powder... yes, baby powder. It's pretty effective - ants come into contact with it and it dries them right up. Poof - ants be gone. Wait - use a vacuum cleaner and then the process of killing ants will have been completed.

Now if you do decide to buy straight up diatomaceous earth from your local store, there are some potential health risks to be aware of. It's still a natural solution, but not as people friendly as baby powder. Handle it with gloves because that stuff will dry your hands out quickly. You may also want to use a mask as the powder is fine and could do damage if you inhale too much of it... especially if you're using the industrial version because it has a highly crystalline form of silica that result in sharp edges.

Now if you're trying to treat a large area, such as a garden or outside around the house, you're probably not going to sprinkle baby powder everywhere... that's a lot of baby powder. I recommend purchasing Concern Diatomaceous Earth - Crawling Insect Killer - it is especially designed to kill ants and other crawling insects that may be plaguing your home and garden. This stuff is not really intended for indoor use - stick to baby powder in that case.

You asked how to get rid of ants naturally, and I have answered. Stay tuned for more natural ways to get rid of ants!

How to Get Rid of Ants - Introduction

2008-07-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

I'm going to venture to say you're not reading this right now because you've always had a natural curiosity about ants. Seriously, you've got one thing on your mind and that's not just ants, it's how to get rid of ants. Please bear with me where I start this off though because this is important. Before you can get rid of ants, you have to know what you're dealing with. Just like different people like different things and have different tastes, so do you ants. An important part of getting rid of them is learning how to identify them. Hopefully I can make this quick and painless and you can be on your merry way.

There are few pests in the world that are harder to get rid of than ants - you probably know this because you're here. I bet you've even tried a trick or two, and maybe you've been met with limited success. I'm going to tell you how to seal the deal, but it's only going to work if you follow the steps. This is not like learning how to get rid of mice or other common household pests. Ants can be a real nuisance and may often times require the help of a professional exterminator.

Before you pull out the magnifying glass and start frying the ants and sending them where they belong, realize that they are a critical role in the ecological circle of life. Though ants seem to be a pest to us humans, they do help us out by keeping other pest populations in line. If it's not ants, it'd be something else. Unfortunately ants are one of the hardest pests to get rid of because there are just so many in a colony. You'll find it very difficult to destroy an entire colony of ants, but you should be able to control local populations and that will help. But I ramble on... you probably don't care about the natural habits of ants, but it helps knowing what you're up against.

So what kind of ant are you really dealing with here?

There's a pretty good chance you're up against an ant known to the science community as pavement ants, or also mistakenly referred to as house ants or sugar ants. These are the brown ants that you'll find digging up small mounds in the middle of your driveway or other places such as near sidewalks or on the side of a house. They're known to wander into a house, apartment, or building, or two, or two thousand.

Another common type of ant that you may run into is the carpenter ant. If the ants have wings this is probably what you're up against. This is a nasty little bugger itself because this can actually cause damage to the frame of your house. If you have these guys deal with them, pronto. A lot of times these ants are confused for termites because they appear to be eating wood... this is not the case though. The reason they're burrowing through wood is to expand their colony and become the next greatest ant empire, all within the friendly confines of your home. They tend to prefer dead, damp wood to build their nests, so if you experience some sort of water damage and the wood is rotting in place, these guys would love to speak with you. The most common type you'll run into is the black carpenter ant.

If you live in the deep South, you may find yourself battling another type of deviant ant - the fire ant. They're also sometimes known as red ants. These are the ones that will swarm and start stinging a threatening creature incessantly - yes, that means you. Maybe you've already had the pleasure, and that's why you're here - you want to know how to get rid of these nasty ants. They are red and tend to be very aggressive and persistent. These ants are typically found in moist areas and characteristically have very large mounds, some that can grow as large as one foot high. These large mounds only exist in large open areas like fields, and such. Just because you don't see a huge mound though doesn't mean you're dealing with a different kind of ant. These ants will usually make their home under objects such as logs, timber, rocks, and bricks.

How to Get Rid of Pharaoh Ants

2008-07-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Pharaoh ants are a very small (2 mm) known to be a major nuisance pest in various buildings such as hospitals, apartments, hotels, and food establishments. They are found all around the world, and now you're trying to figure out how to get rid of pharaoh ants from your home.

Like most insect pests the best way to get rid of them is via prevention. Due to the overwhelming number of insects in a given population, it is extremely difficult to completely remove all ants from a colony. This particular nuisance is so small that they are able to gain entry to areas that most insects wouldn't be able to enter. Their choices of food are wide ranging and can eat anything from peanut butter and jelly to fruit juices or other dead insects. These little ants are known to gnaw into various materials like silk or rubber which could ruin that new high quality shirt you bought or jeopardize the integrity of a rubber ring seal.

Getting rid of pharaoh ants will prove difficult at best. The way these ants colonize is that they have many "mini colonies" that are geographically spread in close proximity but give it the impression of a huge super colony. These ants tend to be very adaptable in that you need to completely rid yourself of all ants and all colonies or another widespread infestation is imminent. During times of treatment and extermination, these ants are known to "weather the storm" by contracting the size of their nests until the treatment has passed at which point they will resume expansion. Since they are able to gain access to the tightest of areas treatment must include all area, from floor to ceailing, to walls and outlets.

So it still begs the questions... How do you get rid of pharaoh ants? The preferred method is a sweet bait that contains borax, or boric acid. The bait traps must be strategically placed along ant trails and the food and water supply. Do not use repellent baits as this will only worsen matters. This will cause the colony to break out and further increase the expansive nature of the mini colonies. Your best bet for treatment is Terro Ant Killer (Liquid Bait).

Again like most ant colonies, the queen is of great importance and needs to be eliminated. The problem with Pharaoh ants, however, is that they have many queens in a single colony. Some people will use insect growth regulators, or IGR, to control pharaoh ants indoors. It's a bait that the ants take back to their nests and fed to the other ants including the queen. The IGR prevents production of foragers by sterilizing the queen. Without worker ants to bring food back to the nest, the colony will eventually die off naturally but this can take weeks or months depending on the size of the colonies and the number of them.

How to Get Rid of Carpenter Ants

2008-07-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

Carpenter ants are large ants that can be from 1/4 in-1 in long, and they are found all around the world, and of course right now they're found in or around your home. In nature these ants are a great benefit to the ecological circle of life because they enhance the decay of rotting wood. The problem is these ants to discriminate between the dead trees in the forest and the frame of your house.

In order to get rid of carpenter ants, you need to remove the elements of that promote their existence. In as much as possible eliminate situations that would aid in moisture retention.

* For example, if you have a pile of wood outside that you use for your fireplace, this should be stored in a dry sheltered location. Any wood in contact with the ground can act as an entry point. If it rains, the wood will retain the moisture which acts as a breeding ground for the carpenter ants.
* Another key step in preventing your house from getting infested by ants, in particular the carpenter ant, is to keep gutters clean which prevents water from running down the side of your structure.
* Any leaks you may find in the house could also promote damp conditions favorable to carpenter ants. Make sure any plumbing leaks are taken care of as this will not only cause other household problems, but make conditions for carpenter ants that much more favorable.

Removing moisture is an effective way of preventing carpenter ants from establishing a colony, but it will not eliminate one that is already existent. A common method for dealing with a colony of carpenter ants is the spraying of insecticides to kill them. While this will kill ants that the insecticide comes into contact with, it may not have the desired effect of getting rid of the ant colony. The problem is that many ants (including the ever important queen ant) are hidden deep inside a labyrinth of wood mazes (i.e. their nest). The only way to completely remove the nest and infestation is to completely remove the wood that is housing them. This may make you nervous as this is the frame of your home, but this would is likely not structuraly sound because of the ants and should be replaced in short time before the damage worsens.

To get rid of this main nest, you'll have to be able to locate it. This should not be too difficult as you should be able to track back the trail of foragers gathering food and stockpiling it in the nest. If you're seeing the flying ants, which are generally winged males trying to mate, you should kill them but they likely won't lead you to their nest. They are generally near windows trying to escape to the outside world as they like visible light. Flying ants are a tell tale sign that a nest is nearby. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING! It may seem like one or two, but there are more. Locate the main nest immediately before more extensive damage occurs.

Getting rid of ants is often times a difficult task and may require professional intervention. Do not delay the inevitable as it may only make things worse.

How to Get Rid of Fire Ants

2008-07-15T13:17:00.000-07:00

Fire ants are one of the nastiest ant infestations to deal with due to their resiliency and worse yet their tendencies to sting anything that gets nears them. The sting is painful at best but to some people with severe allergies, the sting of a fire ant, or red ant, can prove to be fatal. There are steps to take to get rid of them, but please be careful or leave these nasty buggers to the professionals. If you do get stung by a fire ant, apply a topical cream such as hydrocortisone or a cream that contains aloe vera to sooth the area. Antihistamines are also effective in treating symptoms, but I'll say again, those people who experience very severe reactions should seek immediate medical attention. You've been warned!

So how you get rid of red fire ants? Texas A&M University developed a method to handle this pest called the "Texas Two Step." It is a long term ant control mechanism that I will outline for you here that doesn't make use of any harmful chemicals. Note that this is an outdoor only process, so keep that in mind.

Step one of this process is to "broadcast" a non-toxic bait insecticide. The fire ant killing bait should be liberally applied to the areas that are infested by the fire ants. The ants will do the dirty work for you and transport the bait back into the nest. Once the queen eats the bait, she will become infertile and/or die. The net result is an ant population that stops growing. Now you need to deal with the ants that weren't killed y phase one of this attack. In step two you apply another non-toxic chemical, organic liquid insecitide, to each and every mound to kill the remainder of ants. DONE! Sound easy? It is, but the key is to make sure to apply the non-toxic chemicals thoroughly across all infected areas. It does you no good to kill six nests when you have seven. The one remaining will just grow and multiply and you're back to square one.

If your home has been infested by fire ants, there are chemical treatments that are specifically for indoor use, so make sure to read the label carefully.

Prevent fire ants from coming indoors by following these simple steps. Pest control comes down to two things: remove the food source and remove accessibility. Food should be properly sealed in airtight plastic containers. Ants are attracted to sugars so, keep that in mind and keep those cookies and other baked goods sealed tightly. Clean your home regularly. When dealing with ants an effective deterrent is to use an abrasive cleaning chemical on your countertops, such as bleach. If you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drop some on the counter, clean it up thoroughly as this is prime ant food.

Remove accessibility by ensuring that your home is properly sealed. Make sure there are no cracks or gaps in doors or windows. If so apply weather stripping or other means of sealant. As a temporary fix you can spread baby powder as a deterrent near these openings. If there are any cracks or holes in your foundation, it is imperative that these get repaired as well by use of caulk. By properly implementing these prevention techniques, you will not worry about getting rid of ants because they won't be there in the first place!

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2008-07-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

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2008-05-01T10:18:00.000-07:00