If you have to fight ants because they have settled in your apartment, you don’t necessarily have to use the chemical club. You can also get rid of them naturally.
Ants are useful animals and in nature, they fulfill the important task of the health police. As long as they limit themselves to their territory in the forest and on the meadow in “official acts”, nobody has a problem with them.
However, it looks different when they settle in our apartments and gardens. Uninvited guests can quickly become a nuisance. Some species even penetrate as far as attic apartments on the fifth floor.
The trade offers a variety of means of combating ants – often with chemical poisons. There are many natural home remedies and simple tricks you can use to fight ants – and keep the animals alive.
We’ll introduce you to the most important home remedies you can use to fight ants in your home and garden.
Fighting Ants: Helpful Home Remedies
Baking soda is considered a classic for fighting ants. But many do not know that the animals perish in agony in the process.
After they have eaten the baking powder, it swells in their stomachs until they burst. Effective but brutal. Instead, try to disrupt the ant route or drive away from the ant colony:
Tape: Cover a piece of the ant road with tape. The ants lose the scent trail with which they marked the path for themselves and their comrades, and then can no longer find the source of food.
Chalk: It works on the same principle. Simply interrupt the ant road with a chalk line.
Strongly scented substances: Place garlic, cinnamon, lavender, lemon, vinegar, or in the form of essential oils (online e.g., at ** Avocadostore) on the ant trail – this confuses the insects and hopefully drives them away soon.
Eliminate food sources: ants are often attracted by aphids and their sugar secretions on terraces. If you fight the aphids, you will soon get rid of the ants too.
This also applies to sweet foods stored in the open in the house and apartment. Always close tightly!
Flooding the ant burrow: ants that have made themselves comfortable in flower pots and troughs and built a nest there can be driven away by regularly flooding the burrow with the watering can.
Read Also:
Fighting Ants in the Garden: Relocating Instead of Killing them
Relocation
Fill a flowerpot with wood wool and place it with the opening facing down on the ant trail or above the ant burrow.
Soon the ants bring their pupae to their new accommodation and leave the old burrow.
As soon as the move is complete, look for a new location – as far away as possible (at least 30 meters) – and let the ants settle there.
Ant Barriers
Natural home remedies that work on the basis of fragrances have also proven themselves in the garden.
Apply a scent barrier made of essential oils such as lavender, clove, or thyme, but also vinegar and lemon peel in front of house entrances and around patios.
Caution
If the ants get out of hand, don’t hesitate too long and get professional help – especially when it comes to pharaohs or wood ants! Otherwise, the damage can be considerable!
