baby powder!! safe for dogs! and cheap.

Okay I can help here I owned a pest control Business for three years. Also manage a company for 8 . That being said you need to remove the covers on your electrical outlets. Go be side the box and put dust in your walls. Thus stuff last for 1 year or longer. If you use a bait you need to bait outside!!!! I'm going to attach a photo of a good powder chemical to go in your wall.

Also if you have some type of landscaping around your house like find Strahl bark something that whole moisture they could be nested under their spray them with some type of chemical and kill them at the same time while putting Dust your in your walls. Type of ass you have a thinker probably called Argentina ants.

Aka " piss ants" cause all they do is piss you off

If you have the big black ants let me know! Cause you treat them different.

If you want a to really get then you put the Destin the wall then treat them with this other chemical that I'm attaching. It's a non-repellent so you don't want to mix it with any chemicals one Sanset gets and it gets understand they don't realize I have it on them. Some other ways it works like with a cockroach they get into clean them off and it kills in that way. They also breathe it into their spheres which is another word for saying basically what they breathe out of. Long story long I would probably just use the dust in my walls you some type of maybe over-the-counter chemical to treating out something outside. You're still having a problem bothers other chemical entreat along with the powder that should eliminate them.

I think you will be wasting your time with a lot of those home remedies.

It's interesting to read about home remedies and I hope they work because they are safe. . However, I live in a petless, childless home and have no qualms blasting the buggers with chemicals. We have the small variety of ants and when I see just one of them in the spring, I get out the Ortho Home Defense and spray doorways and other areas inside and out. This product works on other insects, too. In the past, I have used Grants Kills Ants traps with success, but beware, they contain arsenic.

Well if you want a home remedy that actually really does work if you just want to spray the answer when that that will kill them but preventing them for a period of time that's a different story. But if you have an infestation that's different too. You're definitely want to use the chemicals that I recommended or some type of commercial product.

regularly spraying your home perimeter with an organic based spray.

Ants will come into your house looking for water. Check in the cabinets under your sinks for dampness.. It won't necessarily be a plumbing leak. The seal around the sink may need to be re-caulked. Your faucets may also be leaking and need new seals. Put out those traps too. Other than fixing the water problems, the traps have been the only things that have worked for us and that includes professional exterminators! Oh, and keep your counters, cabinets and pantries clean, paying special attention to syrups, sugar, etc. Clean around the lids of the syrup bottles. They don't call them sugar ants for nuthin'!

Terro works great. We have a winter place in Florida, had ants upon returning one year. Got rid of them easily with terro. No more ants.

What the happy person said about water is true. If there is to much rain it will bring them in also.

They also like protein.

http://blog.asepsis-kenya.com/control-coakroaches/

I had to resort to an exterminator after trying cinnamon, cream of tarter, and a few other things. He worked outside the periphery. They never came back

i have used baby powder for years and after a day they are gone gone gone!

I'm with the Terro crowd. Every spring ants are Gone! Living in a woods, in a wood frame home, having tried all the killers mentioned, Terro is the only thing that really works.

I agree that Terro is the best I have used (I have tried everything). As we speak, there are ants on om computer screen. MY ants must be treated regularly to keep them at bay.

It's that time of the year when the ants are coming back..Terro is out of the box now and doing a pretty good job. As for pesticides, careful with those,,think twice before deciding on that. Just because they are pros, doesn't mean they can't do something bad. There is a family in our area that is in hospital, in critical condition because of pesticides (applied by pros)

People think I am a hippie for using essential oils. Insecticides are so stinking dangerous. There are thousands of cases every year of pets, children and adults getting severely sick from dangerous pest control chemicals. Think about all of the mild cases that go unreported! I use peppermint and tea tree essential oils to keep ants out of my house. I have less ants now than I did when I had a yearly subscription to Orkin. Here is a resource if anyone wants to try it:

I boil black pepper with lemon and pour in the cracks or ant holes. I put the pepper inside along the trails with little water and it dries. The ants hate it and stay away. Also they will take it to the nest and no more problems. If you want to spend money, the round ant traps put near ant holes will get rid of them.

I live in Arizona. I have desert landscaping, with 3/4 inch screened granite around my whole house.

In 6 years I've seen maybe four bugs in my home. The secret is very simple for my situation.... Every month I springle 2 - 4 pound boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax around the foundation of my home. Been doing this for many years. No ants, no roaches, no spiders, no scorpions.... Nothing. Plants are doing great, dogs walk around the house, no problem. I've been told that fine ground dust of the 20 Mule Team Borax acts as knives to cut up insects. What ever it does, insects don't like the stuff.

Would it work for you? I say try it in a small area. In your yard, place a sheet of tacky insect paper down in two places. Put nothing around one sheet and borax around the other. See if Borax surrounded sheet has fewer bugs?

Same with a plant. Find two plants you don't really like and surround one and leave the other as is? Your weather conditions will be different from mine. Rain doesn't seem to do much but wash the borax deeper into the soil. Still no bugs.

Try it. Works for me. I've never used borax inside. Some folks have with success. Again, try it in a small area with a tacky paper if you have insects....

Good Luck!

Combat bait traps. Works like a dream. Put them in the path and you won't see them again.

I know this post is a couple years old.... but I was wondering if anyone has ideas for getting rid of ant colonies outside...?
I don't want to just get rid of them (and this may sound harsh...) but I want them dead...
I have a raised garden (for my Herbs, and once in a while a tomato plant) and there's a big colony in it.... so something natural/environmentally friendly.
help?! please

April, get some Terro ant bait..it's natural. We use it outside the house perimeter

Borax works great. I mix Borax with some sugar water (to attract them) and haven't seen an ant in a long time.

Another vote for the borax. I mix it with honey.

A note on essential oils. Certainly better than chemical compounds, but still not harmless. Tea tree oil does have adverse effects on some people and may cause hormonal responses in pre-pubescent males. It is dangerous if ingested (by kids or pets for example) and should not be used near mucous membranes (nose). I use it when the benefit outweighs the risk but I wouldn't use it on a continual basis for prevention of infestations, especially since I have young kids and curious pets.

The only thing that has ever worked for me are these Terro liquid ant baits. They work amazingly well and extremely fast.

Every spring when I see ants coming in, I put a small pile of sugar outside on the porch and they leave for the sugar. They never come back until the following spring.

I second the borax, I’ve put it in mint jelly. I haven’t needed it in a couple years. Another fun tip. I moved something in my laundry room and their was a small swarm scattering. I grabbed my sticky lint roller and caught them all before they could disappear. Peel and toss the sheet!

I have had great success with the Terro baits.

The funny thing is the Terro baits are just Borax plus chemicals wrapped in plastic. You can DIY it with all natural ingredients and no plastic use at all, for a fraction of the price!!

Terro is pretty much borax

Thank you all!

Borax will help with big colonies? ((I assume they take the borax back (thinking its sugar) and it gets fed to everyone else?)) The biggest colony in my yard is probably a little bigger than a 20inch box fan... (thats not including my raised garden)
Thank you all so much!
(I will be putting borax around my place and raised garden)

Did you want to try to repel them with your used coffee grounds, it's okay for use in the garden because some people use it for compost and you can wet it when it dries out while watering.

It’s the actual sugar they are after, so it has to be mixed with something like jelly. Since my ants were coming in from outside, I assume it was being carried back to the colony outside because they eventually disappeared.

http://www.terro.com/indoor-baiting#Baiting

As stated terro is Borax, so just buy the borax washing soap and make your own, much cheaper.

Another vote for Terro. Amazing how well it works.

Interesting info on Borax

https://crunchybetty.com/getting-to-the-bottom-of-borax-is-it-safe-or-not/

When we lived in CA farming central valley all bugs were invasive! I found a book at the library that said the first line of defense is to stop them by getting rid of the things they live on....water, food, and dust for warmth. So seal all your pipes, doors, windows, aka. entry points of the house, remove any standing or moving water like drips or cracks or leaky faucets, and get rid of any hiding places like cardboard boxes, clothing or shoes thrown on the floor, etc. Dust baseboards and ceilings regularly and closets too! See if this slows things down.....we had an old kitchen window and replaced it this year as the ants were coming thru the wear holes in the corners of the metal window....it has slowed them down 99 per cent! And we bomb with raid in spring, summer and fall and that makes a big difference too. We live on a slab foundation in the high desert so do have a certain number of critters.....

Susan, try Borax for the ants.

I have used used coffee grounds and it does not work....at least for me. It just seems to attract more even tho there is no sugar in the grounds.
I will spread borax in the morning... Again Thank you all so much!!

An exterminator

Terro

I have had three ant invasions, fortunately tiny ones, over the last ten years. (I became fanatical after the last one and haven't had one in more than 3-4 years now.) There are two parts to my success:

Part 1: Dawn dishwashing liquid, the blue one. That kills them instantly and also wipes out their scent trails. I wet down paper towels, put the dishwashing liquid on them and placed them on the trail. I also just poured the liquid directly on them and around the food they were after. It took a few days before they were never seen again.

Part 2: Fanatical, absolutely fanatical, no-exceptions-whatsoever rules were put in place. Everything must be in canning jars, locking storage, the refrigerator or freezer. Cats are fed in their glass pie plates but the food, both soft and hard, stays down only for a limited period of time. This means I am feeding them more often, several times a day plus I always wipe the floor around the bowls with either soap and water or vinegar to catch any fallen bits of food. The water bowl is changed out daily but without food to attract the ants it seems to be left alone. Human food or drink, including water, is not allowed anywhere except in the kitchen or dining room. This includes bottled water if guests bring any.

Some of these measures may seem extreme but they're not, really. And I am completely free of ants.

Liquid Terro was wonderful. I regret that I can no longer get it. The bait traps seem useless. The ants walk around them. I've NEVER seen an ant on one. I've reverted back to my mothers's old syrup and boric acid concoction.

Diatomaceous earth. It is good for all kinds of pests. It is crushed up shell rock that when the bugs walk across it or ingest it, it makes tiny cuts in them and they dehydrate. But anything that will disrupt the path of the ants will deter them. Now, fire ants are another thing all together!

Have you watched them to see how/where they are entering your home; if not, try doing that and focus your "chemical attack" there and not put it elsewhere if not needed elsewhere.

I know this is an old thread but it's that time of year.

I use grits - uncooked. Make sure it's not going to rain for a couple of days. Sprinkle the grits around the ant hill ( if there is one , there are more ) and the surrounding 10 ft .

They were gone after that.

Cheap , easy and safe