How do I get rid of ants indoors without dangerous chemicals?
Question:I have a crawling/cruising baby and ants that come in around my patio door. She likes to stand up against the door and look out but I don't want her eating ants or poison!
Answers:
The little Raid ant baits worked miracles in my house. Are there places nearby that you could put them where the baby couldn't get hold of them? I know they are safe to use around food, but you wouldn't want her to putting them in her mouth.
Diatomacious earth (the kind for landscaping, not for pool filters) works wonders to keep ants out and there is no poison in it at all. You use it outside by making a straight line with it along the edge of your house with no breaks. The ants can not crawl over it (it's gross why they can't). Another thing you can use the same way (by making a barrier the ants can't cross) is cayenne pepper (I use it around the sides, corners, and back of my cupboards), but you wouldn't want your daughter getting into that either!
Spray ants with Windex (or whatever window cleaner you use) and do not clean them up for a little while. The other ants see that their coworkers are dying in your home and they won't want to suffer the same fate (it actually works).
There's a book called Tiny Game Hunting that has great ideas for natural pest control.
Try a steamer it does not contain an chemical but kills ants immediately. But you may need to use chemicals outside once you have sourced where they come from.
Put ant baits OUTSIDE the door for them to chomp on. In the meantime, spray Fantastic all along the trim and door opening, to remove the chemical scent trail that ants leave for each other. Also--and I know this from experience with five children--don't let your little one leave sippies full of juice around. The ants that are driving you nuts are called sweet ants, and like their name suggests, they can find sugar anywhere. Get the carpets cleaned, and put water in the sippies instead!
An easy way would be to replace the weatherstripping in the door if it needs and caulk any cracks around the door to keep them from coming into the house. No danger to baby that way.
Cayenne Pepper or any spice rack hot pepper type thing. Sprinkle it around the house and the ants will not cross it. I guess it either burns them or they try to eat it and don't like it.
http://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resources/...
Ant Baits: A Least Toxic Control
by Barb Ogg, PhD, Extension Educator
Printable .pdf
When faced with an insect pest problem inside the home, too many people reach for an aerosol container. For many ant species, baits are the best management tactic because the entire colony is destroyed. This results in a more permanent solution to their ant problem. In addition, many baits have low toxicity to people and pets.
The trick to using baits is to make sure that the offending ants find the bait, eat it voraciously and take it back to the nest to the queen. If residual insecticide sprays are used, the foraging ants may die before they feed or take the bait back to the next, counteracting the effectiveness of the bait. Do not use insecticide sprays if you want to bait for ant control. If the bait is attractive to the ants, the entire colony will be destroyed within a few weeks. No insecticide sprays will be necessary!
Not all ant species can be controlled by baits and some baits work better than others. In general, ants that eat a wide variety of foods will be less affected by baits because the bait will comprise a smaller proportion of their food. Sugar-loving ants are the easiest to control.
Sweet-Loving Ants. The easiest ants to control are sweet-loving ants. You can use jelly to increase the ant foraging behavior and make the toxic bait more effective. Apply a ribbon of jelly (1-1/2" x 1/4") to masking tape in the areas where you have seen the offending ants, especially around water sources and window ledge. Masking tape works great because it stays in place and is easy to remove and discard later. Experts say that mint or mint apple jelly seems to be the most attractive to foraging sugar ants. A plastic squeeze bottle with a pointed tip makes a convenient applicator.
Sweet-loving ants should begin feeding on the jelly within a couple hours after bait placement. These "survey stations" can be used to pinpoint areas that should be baited. Experts say to use one survey station for each 50 square feet of living space and each 15-20 feet around the house. This can mean lots of jelly and masking tape; however, later you wil be able to use the toxic bait more efficiently and save time and money in the long run.
About two hours after setting out the jelly stations, you should count the number of ants foraging at each station. If there are more than 10 ants feeding at the station, the toxic bait should be placed at the active site. If there is tape with no feeding ants, the masking tape with jelly ribbon is discarded. The most successful baits are those that contain a slow-acting stomach poison so the foraging ant workers will take the bait back to the queen. We recommend baits with boric acid or hydramethylnon as their active ingredient.
Grease and Protein-Loving Ants. Big-headed ants, little black ants and pavement ants prefer grease and protein; in addition, they will also feed on fruit juices. They respond best to protein/grease baits. A bait recipe from Field Guide for the Management of Structure Infesting Ants is: 2 ounces (4 tablespoons) peanut butter
* 3 ounces (6 tablespoons)
* honey
* 3/4 teaspoon boric acid
There are some commercially available baits (DRAX®-FP) that will also work for grease-loving ants.
Carpenter Ants. Carpenter ants will eat sweets; they also eat a wide variety of other food. Some baits are registered for carpenter ant control; however, they do not work as well as on other ant species.
A baiting technique can be used to locate carpenter ants' nests. Purchase some live crickets at your local pet store. Kill a couple and place them in an area where carpenter ants forage. Within a short time, the workers should located the crickets and drag them back to the nest. By tracking their movements, it may be easier to find the nest location. Because carpenter ants forage during late afternoon and evening hours, make sure bait is available at this time of the day.
Ant Species Controlled by Baits:
* Argentine ants (sweet bait)
* Odorous house ants (sweet bait)
* Small honey ants (sweet bait)
* Pavement ants (sweet and grease baits)
* Little black ants (sweet and grease baits)
* Pharaoh ants (use hydramethylnon bait)
* Big-headed ants (sweet and grease bait)
The following baits are registered for ant control:
*
Terro® (OTC) | gel | boric acid/sugars
*
Pic® liquid (OTC) | gel | boric acid/sugars
*
Drax® Ant Kil Gel (PRO) | gel | boric acid/sugars/apple/mint (sugar-feeding ants)
*
Drax®-FP (PRO) | gel | boric acid with peanut butter/oil (protein and grease-feeding ants)
*
MAXFORCE | gel, granules | hydramethylnon
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