Got Ants? Are You Ready to Try a More Natural Approach to Control

In our home we do our best to use as few chemicals as possible. I'm not perfect by any means, but we really try. I was put to the test just before Christmas when I saw a few ants in the bathroom. Of course the next day they were in the kitchen, the pantry, the other bathroom! We were no longer talking about just a few! Wow, their timing was perfect! The holidays, loads of extra food prep happening, guests, all of it, and I was dealing with ants!

It had been a while since I'd had to deal with ants so I did a Google search and looked for DIY ant killer. There are lots of recipes for homemade all natural ant spray so I settled in to try a few. The first one I made was a combination of apple cider vinegar, baking soda and dish soap. I got the recipe here 

http://thesoccermomblog.com/2015/05/16/diy-natural-ant-repellent-spray

It killed the ants I sprayed, but more just kept coming!

Next I tried a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, mouthwash and dish soap that I found here 

http://frugalandthrifty4.blogspot.ca/2013/01/ant-killer-spray.html

It also killed the ants on contact and smelled great, but more ants just keep coming!

So I honed my search for a recipe that would work on killing the queen not just the workers you see in your pantry. That's when I came across a recipe that called for just 3 ingredients, two of which I readily had and one I had to go looking for, Sugar, Water and Borax. I found the recipe here http://www.listotic.com/everyday-products-you-can-easily-make-from-home-homemade-products/18/

Borax is a natural mineral found within the ground that has been used for years as a natural laundry booster, multipurpose cleaner, insecticide, disinfectant and more. Its chemical name is sodium borate, or sodium tetraborate and while I wouldn't be feeding it to babies, I feel better about using a mineral from the earth than I do about using a chemical compound created in a lab somewhere.

The process for using this recipe is simple. Mix sugar and warm water and borax and then soak a few cotton balls with the stuff. Leave the wet cotton balls where the ants will find it. The sugar and water will bait the ants into thinking they've hit the mother loads of free snacks, and the borax will deliver the punch, just not immediately. Here's where you have to have a little faith that the Google Guys won't steer you wrong,

So I did as I was told and soaked a few cotton balls. One in the pantry where they were thick as thieves on a bag of unsweetened coconut of all things. One in the downstairs shower where they had developed  a taste for my daughter's shampoo. And one on a window sill in the family room where I had seen a few ants.

Within 20 minutes the one in the pantry and the one in the shower where covered in ants. The message was out that dinner was served and hundreds, no thousands, had answered the call. Here's where my aforementioned faith was being tested. Was I just feeding them or would this work?

Well, here's what happened. The two that had drawn a crowd were rock hard in about 6 hours. I guess the ants were sucking it dry. So I replaced it with another treated cotton ball and they sucked that one dry. This went on for three days. By day two though I noticed a few dead ants near the cotton ball. And by day three there were a lot of dead ants. Dead ants in the kitchen too even though I didn't leave any baited cotton balls in the kitchen. Finally by day 6 the baited cotton balls weren't drawing any ants at all and I couldn't find any ants moving around anywhere. 

I'm calling this a success. It took a week to be completely rid of the little pests, but I did it without laying down toxins in my house or spraying toxins that we could all be breathing in. And I think if borax came from the earth, then our landfill won't mind a few cotton balls laced with the stuff when they finally get there.

So that's my story. How are you making changes to live cleaner, greener and safer?

Jennifer

The Secret Garden