Thursday, April 14, 2011

Homemade Ant Baits

It's that time of the year again!
The time when the spring rains seem to push the ants indoors.  YUCK!
I don't mind ants being outdoors - after all God did put everything on Earth for one purpose or another.
However, they have NO purpose in my home.
                       S  P  L  A  T !
For the past 3 weeks I've noticed an ant here or there in my laundry room ~ no big deal!
I purchased a few store bought ant traps but so far they haven't worked their magic.
So I went to search the internet for a solution and this is what I came up with. *These are the measurements that I mixed together for a small batch.*

Homemade Ant Bait

1 1/2 tbsp. Borax powder
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup warm water
cotton balls
an old glass or plastic container to mix everything in

Mix first three in container.
Place a few cotton balls in the mixture and let them soak for a minute.
Remove cotton from mixture and squeeze out the excess liquid.
Place cotton balls in places where the ants are being a nuisance however keep them out of reach of children and animals. When the cotton dries out you can submerge them back in the solution, squeeze and reuse.
I have brick on my outer kitchen walls and that is where the ants seemed to be coming from. These cotton balls worked well in those hard to get to areas. I was able to scrunch them up and shove them in between the bricks.
Within one day the ants were gone from my kitchen.
I can't say the same for my laundry room though.
So far I have only used the store bought traps in the laundry area and I still have ants.
So tomorrow I will mix up another small batch and see if that gets rids of them there too!

6 comments:

West Side of Straight said...

Jessica, how is this mixture suppose to get rid of the ants. Do they chew on the cotton ball to get poisoned? Spose the sugar would attract them, jo

Country Whispers said...

Jo,
Yes, the sugar attracts them. They walk on the cotton and eat the poison from it (Borax- a main ingredient in store bought traps)& then take it back to their nest with them which eventually will help to kill off the nest.
The ants seemed to avoid the store bought traps so since I had all the ingredients on hand I thought I'd give it a try. It worked!
I'm still rewetting the cotton balls each day as a preventitive measure to make sure they stay away. More rain is on it's way and with the wet weather the ants will be surely look to come indoors again.

Carmen S. said...

We get them too and I'll give this a try for sure! I've gotten the store bought traps before and set them down right where there are ants and they walked right around it, no interest what-so-ever, HA! I get them in my strawberry beds outside too, wondering if I put these cotton balls in something to keep them from the rain if they might work outside too:) Thanks for sharing this and have a wonderful day!!!!

Robin at The Primitive Hutch said...

I hate ants in my house too!
Good luck ~ I hope you get them.
Have a great weekend!
Prim Blessings
Robin

Barb said...

Very good tip! Just discovered your blog and I'll be a-comin' back.

Angela said...

I might have to do this this year if the ants start marching in my front door! My kids drop food every where and it just brings them in. I'll have to figure out where I could put them where the dogs won't get them.

Many years ago my Granny used to make a mixture using Borax to kill roaches. It worked!

Thanks for the recipe!
Angela