Having ants around the house can be very disturbing. If you live in hot areas then you must encounter them on a daily basis, but if you live somewhere relatively cold, then you might encounter them more during the summer. Ants usually invade looking for food to bring back to the colony. Your house can be invaded by multiple kinds of ants like carpenter ants, acrobat ants, pavement ants, etc. All of the species have similarities and differences, but you want them all out of your house
You might be thinking about getting professionals to deal with it. That method is wise, however, it is expensive. If you want to hire exterminators, then you have to pay at least between 150 and 300 USD for a one time visit. And if you have a serious problem, then expect numbers to blow the roof off.
But fear not, because there are methods that you can use to control ant invasion. First, check if you have ants invasion and not termites (if you have carpenter ants, the difference can be hard to notice). To check, hunt down an insect and check out its body if it has a pinched or segmented torso, then it is an ant, but if it has a straight body with no segments, then it is a termite.
Make a homemade ants trap
Use the following materials:
- 1 cup of warm water
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of borax
- cotton balls
Start by mixing borax with sugar in warm water, then soak cotton balls in the obtained solution. When the cotton balls are wet, put them in the areas that have or had ants to attract them to the sugary solution. Don’t worry, once they start eating borax powder, they’ll drop dead. Make sure to keep your kids and pets away from the cotton balls, or simply put them in a jar and seal it tightly, then punch a few holes in the lid to give a passage for the ants towards the bait.
Once the ants’ activities and visits are almost negligible, remove the bait to avoid attraction of new ant colonies.
If you want another method, then mix borax with peanut butter, and honey, then start putting the obtained mix on cardboard pieces. Make sure to change the bait every 4 days because it dries out only after a few days. Start replacing the bait weekly until your house becomes ants-free.
Killing the Trail
If you want another method, then try to destroy any ant trail that leads directly to your house as soon as possible. Start wiping the area with either bleach, soapy water, or an all-purpose cleaner to kill the ants and destroy the smell that guides other ants to your house.
Keep in mind that not ants are the same, and they are not affected by the same materials, and they surely behave differently. If the mentioned methods won’t seem to work, then you should try to get professional help to deal with the problem before it gets worse.
