Anyone who’s ever had to deal with ants knows how big of a nuisance they can be. A colony of these insects can damage some parts of your house, and some species are known to bite humans. Luckily, eradicating ants is pretty easy, even without chemicals.
To naturally eradicate ants, pour boiling water into ant holes/hills to kill hundreds of the insects inside. You can then get rid of the remaining ants by sprinkling cornstarch over them and then adding water or vacuuming. Alternatively, you can sprinkle coffee grounds around areas they frequent.
Are you curious about how these three methods manage to be almost foolproof? Read on for details on how each of these three natural ant remedies works.
Pour Boiling Water
This can be an effective natural ant remedy when you’re up against an entire ant colony and know precisely where they live. Simply pour boiling water into ant holes/hills in and around your house to kill the insects inside. Remember, ant hills or holes may appear small on the surface but usually house a large ant colony inside.
So by pouring boiling water into their residence, you’ll likely kill hundreds of these insects and possibly their eggs. However, keep in mind that boiling water won’t be sufficient to kill the entire colony. It’s a move that’s meant to help you significantly cut down their numbers so you can use one or more of the other natural remedies we’ll discuss next to eradicate the few remaining insects.
Sprinkle Cornstarch
Cornstarch is another common household substance you can use to naturally eradicate ants when you have many of these annoying insects openly crawling around. When you spot a group of ants, pour a liberal amount of cornstarch over them and add some water.
The result may be messy, but it’ll also include lots of insects encased in cornstarch. For a less messy result, cover the group of ants with cornstarch and immediately vacuum them up instead of pouring water over them. Just be sure to seal and dispose of the vacuum bag immediately.
Use Coffee Grounds
This anecdotal ant remedy may take up to a week, but it works wonders on not just ants but also slugs. To understand how coffee grounds work as a natural ant remedy, you need to know a few things about how these insects operate.
Naturally, worker ants rely on scent trails to map out a path from their home (or colony, if you want to get technical) to the various food sources in your home. The scouts find the food sources and leave behind trail pheromones that map out the way to these spots. Worker ants then rely on the scent left behind by the scouts to find their way to the food source and back to their colony.
Now, coffee grounds contain caffeine, which confuses the worker ants, causing them to lose track of their scent trails. When this happens to many enough worker ants, the colony ends up starving to death or migrates. Either way, the result is fewer to no ants in your home.
To use coffee grounds as an ant repellent, brew your coffee as usual and then sprinkle the coffee grounds around areas where ants frequent (like plants and pet bowls). To make cleaning easier, consider placing the coffee grounds on easily disposable surfaces like index cards. Regardless of where you choose to place them, be sure to keep changing them because coffee grounds may lose their potency when they dry out.
Final Remarks
That’s it for today’s post. While there are many other ways to get rid of ants without using chemicals, most of them may require you to purchase a few supplies.
We selected the above three solutions because they only require items that you likely already have in your home. Hopefully, they’ll help you get rid of ants without forcing you to spend time and money shopping for supplies.