Ant Problem? Tackle it with Green Solutions
August 3, 2008 · Print This Article
Once you start seeing ants around the house, it seems like it’s a never-ending problem – unless you want to resort to dangerous chemicals, which can be toxic to kids and pets (not to mention the environment). There are actually some fairly easy, humane, green ways to kill ants – or if you’re really a softie, to divert them away from your house.
Your mileage may vary with these four methods from wikiHow, and which one you choose might depend on your ability to stomach ant violence. Method 1 involves pipe tobacco, glue, baby powder, red pepper, chalk and lavender – check it out on the wikiHow page. The following three methods are a bit simpler:
Method 2: Fill a spray bottle with highly concentrated soap water. When you see ants, just spray them and they’ll be dead on contact. Wipe up the carcasses with whatever they were trying to eat. Within an hour, any stragglers will have dissipated.
Method 3: Collect a large number of ants from one ant hill (easy to do just leave some food in a container, return after 2 hours and you should have heaps. Drop all the ants in the container onto another ant hill and the ants will start fighting each other resulting in many casualties.
Method 4: Spray 3 parts dish soap and 1 part water on them and they will die instantly.
Method 3 seems kind of cruel but fun for those with suppressed homicidal maniac tendencies. If you’re too squeamish to kill them, one tip is to place a partially open jar of honey up in a tree in your backyard. The ants will seek out the honey instead of raiding your home in most cases.
Link [wikiHow]
Photo credit: Flickr user striatic
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great list of everyday home products that work. no need for those over priced dangerous chemical ones.
[...] EarthFirst has more eco-friendly ant solutions. [...]
My goodness! I can’t see myself starting an all out ant war.
I have had an ant problem (due to my kids forgetting how to eat properly over the table.) I have been vacuuming the little boogers up, then we sweep, mop & immediately spray the floor with white vinegar. This disguises the scent so that their buddies can’t find the trail to follow. I also put crushed bay leaves in all of my window sills & door jams & they don’t seem to like this at all.
As long as the food is swept up immediately the ants don’t seem to come back. At least so far…
See, my problem is that they tend to find the pet food (either the container we store the dog food in or the automatic dish full of cat food) and they inevitably create a massive line from wherever they’re coming from to the food. The food is always in this same place, so we can’t just take it away, and even if we kill this batch, more will come. Also, soap spray probably isn’t the best idea, considering that we have carpet in one of these rooms.