Who has a home remedy for dealing with ants?  

Try some sulfur.. My husband was telling me the other day that this gets rid of all the nasty little pests. He plans on sprinkling some around our house. I am tired of ants. He had to spray for some yesterday, in out home. We are trying to figure out how they got in there. Do try the sulfur. I have been told that this is very poisonous. Also wear gloves while using it.

Like I mentioned in the other post, baking soda or borax in a bit of honey. They will carry it back to the nest for food.

Cayenne pepper only deters them from the area...so if you put it around your house they will theoretically not cross the line. Until it rains. ;) I had no luck with vinegar.

But, put the honey mixture in an area where you see them the most already...putting it elsewhere will ATTRACT them to that area as well.

The best thing is to find the nest...but it is often outside the home and they come in only for extra shelter and food...so it is nearly impossible to find sometimes.

It really depends on what type of ants you have what worsks to get rid of them.

http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-ants.htm

Runor has it that ants and some other pests don't like marigolds and recommend you plant them around the perimeter of your home. I have a black thumb so I haven't tried that. However, I have mixed some essential oils that have helped, but you do have to go back now and again, every few weeks depending on rain. To a 2 gallon sprayer, like you use in the yard that pumps up, add 10 drops pennyroyal, 10 drops peppermint and 5 drops lavendar essential oils. Wear gloves because some essential oils can burn the skin. Spray under the house and around the perimeter about 2 feet out from the house. My husband said spiders don't like it either.

Vinegar works for a lot of stuff, including taking the reek out of soured laundry, so I don't see why it wouldn't work on ants, too. I use cinnamon myself, and I posted that one to your other ants discussion from yesterday. Cayenne pepper works, but I use the cinnamon b/c it won't hurt my son or cats if they get into it. Don't want to have to take Kitty to the vet for cayenne in his eyes! Sprinkle the cinnamon wherever the ants are coming in; windowsills, doorways, cracks in the floor, around the baseboards, wherever. I sprinkle it at the trouble spots inside the house, and it works well. I don't know if it kills them, or just deters them, but they don't like it either way and pretty much stay gone. It smells nice, and it's completely harmless to children and pets...unless they're allergic to it, of course. I also purchased some airtight plastic containers (like Tupperware) for my sugar, flour, cornmeal, tea bags, etc., just in case. Unexpected ants in the sugar for your morning coffee is no picnic! Good luck!

I think WD40 works very well to keep ants away. I tried using OFF oven cleaner also and that also took care of the problem. you have to be careful where you use that though because it will eat up whatever you spray it on. I am having a hard time getting rid of these little pesky yellow bugs that fly around my yard and they land around my pool area and cral everywhere. They bite the crap out of me too. They get all in my hair and all over my bathing suit as well. I hate to go outside because of it. I would love to know how to keep them away when I am outside. they drive me nuts and ruin my summer.

I am answering from email so I am not sure what others have said yet but I have heard that cornmeal kills ants because they can't digest it and so it kills them. I have ehard of the cayenne pepper and even salt but I haven't heard of vinegar yet but it does keep other pest away I don't know about ants yet. I did however find these links with advice most of it worth trying. Here is the links I hope they will work for you and me both because I am fighting ants right now and can't have poisons out because of the kids that are always here ranging from 2 and up.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2...
Here is a great one I found that has more then one suggestion.
http://frugalliving.about...
Here is another good one.
http://www.thefrugallife.com/ants.html
hope something works for you..

I have heard that some people use diatomaceous earth or sand. There is a type of creature living in the oceans called a diatom. They aver very very small. They have shells. When they die these shells sink and can be collected. Apparently, they are very sharp to very small things walking across them. Apparently, but I can't confirm that.


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(Diatomaceous earth is made up of the fossilized remains of diatoms, single-cell organisms. The glass-like nature of diatomaceous earth makes it one of the oldest forms of insecticide. The sharp surfaces cut through the insect cuticle and the insect dies of dehydration. Diatomaceous earth kills earwigs, ants and box elder bugs. Since it's non-discriminate when it kills, be sure to only apply it just to the ground surface where you think insects are overstaying their welcome. )
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Vinegar works for picnic bugs. I do not think it works for ants. I had heard once that ants do not like coffee grounds and avoid earth with coffee grounds in it. I do not think that one actually works, either.

Any remedy or fix which involves individual ants seems unlikely to work. Some people advocate vinager or other things like windex sprayed on ants. The problem with this would seem to be (to me) that there are so many ants and you can only kill so many of hose. Maybe fifty, maybe 100. But ants in the colony are far more numberous.(2)

Another website mentions mixing molasses and active yeast. The function of this is much like ant bait traps in that it kills the ants that eat the bait. Unlike commercial ant traps, they do not bring it back to the queen to kill her. Killing the Queen is what you want.(3)

Just trying to kill the ants you see is like a terrorist thinking that setting off a bomb in a crowded market place will accomplish anything. You blow up (or poison) a few, but there are so many others out there that the death of a few does not win the war for you. It is, to a large extent, a futile effort.

Other advice involves anti-ant tactics meant to discourage ants coming into the house. Now, I do not think ant powders or cucumber peels are really going to be that effective.(4) Even if you can identify every place ants are currently coming into your house, you can't block every possible place they might be entering.

However, obfuscating their ability to find food might be a good idea. Some ants eat wood. Ok, your house is wood. Better get an exterminator there. However, if they are trying to pick up food, that's different. Cleaning meticulously should help there. For example, I had honey on the counter and ants found it. They were attracted to it. I then moved the honey to a counter up high on the wall. The ants never found it. (Not yet.) Ants are stupid. They have to wander to find stuff. They are not bright enough to search things out. They do not know what cupboards are.

The ant would have to climb up the wall, across the cupboard, in a crack, and then finally find the honey which I placed on top of another can. It is hard for them to find the honey, so they did not locate it. As they never located it, they didn't lead a trail of their buddies to collect it.

Now, if there were an obvious path that the ants were using to get at the honey, you could put stuff in their way. Ant powder, cucumber peels, vinegar, or the like. Now, the ants can't use the path they know to find the food. They have to wander until they find it in some other way. They might still find it again, so you have to move the food they like to a place that is difficult for the ant to find by just wandering aimlessly. If you put down powder or peels to deter ants, sooner or later they will find another way in around that and, if the food is still out where they can find it.. find it they will.

I like the idea of plants to deter pests. Some websites talk about that. I'm not entirely certain this works, however.

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Various included footnotes:
1) Home Remedies for Natural Pest Control -> ( http://www.planetnatural.... )

2) Home Remedies for Getting Rid of Ants -> ( http://www.scribd.com/doc... )

3) Get Rid of Ants -> ( http://www.associatedcont... )

4) Home Remedies for Natural Pest Control -> ( http://www.planetnatural.... )

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I have two tips for you.

One isn't something wonderful - just kill every ant you will find

Second one is to use Pronto to the surfaces and floors around your house. I don't understand why but ants are afraid to walk near it for few days everytime I use it. I think that the smell is just awful for them.