Ant REMEDY - This works like a charm!

We have had quite a problem with a resilent strain of ants this year in my kitchen. I have tried the Raid Ant Bait hotels AND sprayed inside and outside me perimeters with Ortho Home Defense, to NO avail.
My daughter shared a natural and cheap remedy with me that she caught on Facebook, and it worked within 24 hours, and I am not kidding!
Natural Ant Remedy
Mix 1 cup of sugar, 3 Tablespoons of 20 Mule Team Borax laundry booster and 3 cups warm water. (I mixed in a quart-sized mason jar, and stirred until sugar and Borax dissolved). Store in a sealed and labeled jar. Place mixture in shallow soda bottle caps, milk jug cap, etc. out of reach from pets and kids. (A little goes a LONG way). Allow ants to drink mixture, but do not kill them! They will take the mixture back to their colony. In a day or two the entire colony should be gone.

Thanks! copied and pasted into user notes....

Here are a couple more -

Take an empty water bottle (20 oz) and melt some holes in it about 3" from the top. Put about an inch of Mountain Dew in the bottle (orange is the best) and hang from trees or under your decks. Cheap bee catchers....we use them up at our lake place where they are really bad and it cut way down on the bee stings the grandkids were getting.

Last time we were up there, we stopped at a place for dinner and saw some clear plastic bags of water hanging from the gutters outside the kitchen door. We asked the waitress what they were for and she had no clue. So on our way to the car, my husband went to the kitchen door and called out to the cook and asked him. They keep flies away!! Something to do with their depth perception...but oddly enough, it works!

I will remember this one for the future, but I don't have an ant problem. I have an EARWHIG problem! I never saw an earwhig in all my years living in central Ohio, but they sure do have them up here! and this year is a doozy. Anybody have any remedies?

We've been using the Terro Ant Killer liquid drops that you place on a little tear off squares at my dad's home. It works like a charm and the active ingredient is Borax, so I think your recipe might work, just don't know how often you'd have to use it. I haven't seen anything but dead ants each time I go to the house and the Terro lasts a long time. I haven't had to put anymore down for the last 6 weeks. Of course, there are no children or pets there, so I don't worry about the little squares placed all over.

I'd give it a try, but the last time I found some marvelous clean-up recipe on Facebook, I made more of a mess than a 5 year old and still had to get out my S.O.S. and scrub. lol

This is a very good post. I use a spray bottle that is half vinegar and half dawn dish soap. For me, this is my stop ants dead in their tracks spray and they don't come back to the same place that season AND my spray from 10-20 ft away (depends on your spray bottle) wasp nest destroyer AND my clean my auto mechanic son's shower spray ANDy ring around the collar spray. Try it on your earwig population it might work for that too. If you spray where there is foliage you will want to hose down the area really well after.
It's something to do with the acid in the vinegar combined with the way the detergent coats the insects but it works really well.

Ants in NEW YORK? You gots to be kidding me! Who'd a thunk it? :icon_heh:

http://thepauls.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/ants.jpg

cucumber peels around their entry point (if you can find it)
BORAX - works on fleas, too!!
Cinnamon for the ants, too.

And, if you have a 6YO Rita living with you, she would definitely recommend an 'ant spanker'. They look like this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l654fNcLkj...ly_Swatter.jpg

I got this one from my sister. Ants in the kitchen or anywhere for that matter. Put teabags around. It can even be the cheapest ones you can find. I've put them on my windowsills, counter, etc. They leave. My dad tried it too and it worked for him. Just another thing you can try.

Hugs,

Yep did the bag thing for flies when I lived in Louisiana, works great

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Originally Posted by bubba

Here are a couple more -

Take an empty water bottle (20 oz) and melt some holes in it about 3" from the top. Put about an inch of Mountain Dew in the bottle (orange is the best) and hang from trees or under your decks. Cheap bee catchers....we use them up at our lake place where they are really bad and it cut way down on the bee stings the grandkids were getting.

Last time we were up there, we stopped at a place for dinner and saw some clear plastic bags of water hanging from the gutters outside the kitchen door. We asked the waitress what they were for and she had no clue. So on our way to the car, my husband went to the kitchen door and called out to the cook and asked him. They keep flies away!! Something to do with their depth perception...but oddly enough, it works!

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Gotta put pennies in those bags of water!!!!

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Originally Posted by kensington

Ants in NEW YORK? You gots to be kidding me! Who'd a thunk it? :icon_heh:

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Well, heck YES! Nearly every year, to one degree or another. But this year, they were particularly pesky, and I was in at least $30
(HELLO, fabric money.......) to rid them. NOTHING worked.
Everything I used, I already had. (20 Mule Team Borax is a great product, by the way. Old School. Great for baby clothes, delicates, laundry stains, yadda, yadda....)
Regarding the recipe. The sugar water draws them in, but the borax seals the deal. The ants return to the colony after ingesting the recipe, they die and the ant colony eats them, and then they die....EWE!
DISGUSTING, right?
HAHA! NOPE. I was under a serious invasion, and they are GONE, GONE, GONE!
Write this one down in your HOME book, and if you don't have one, you should get one. Mine is a fabric covered (AH!) journal filled with all kinds of USEFUL information. The front is reserved for my best GO-TO hand written recipes. The back is filled with info regarding the house, and such.
For instance, when the septic was pumped out last. How much paint it took to cover each room. When the refrigerator was last purchased. When we ALL received our last tetnus shot, and the pups, their rabies shots. When the roof was replaced. How to de-skunk a dog (VERY useful information, my neighbors always seem to need). And the kicker, how to size for a bra! Hey, three growing girls over the years! No muffin tops here!
In summary, (because I know we have English professors amongst us), this ant remedy REALLY works, and it is VERY inexpensive.
If you don't have a house journal, GET ONE. And write the remedy down in the back, and start your own HOUSE journal!
Not an ant in sight, in 48 hours!.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bubba

Here are a couple more -

Take an empty water bottle (20 oz) and melt some holes in it about 3" from the top. Put about an inch of Mountain Dew in the bottle (orange is the best) and hang from trees or under your decks. Cheap bee catchers....we use them up at our lake place where they are really bad and it cut way down on the bee stings the grandkids were getting.

Last time we were up there, we stopped at a place for dinner and saw some clear plastic bags of water hanging from the gutters outside the kitchen door. We asked the waitress what they were for and she had no clue. So on our way to the car, my husband went to the kitchen door and called out to the cook and asked him. They keep flies away!! Something to do with their depth perception...but oddly enough, it works!

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Wonder if that would work to keep yellow jackets away from my hummingbird feeders. Those darn things scare away my hummingbirds. I sure think it is worth a try. Thanks for that tip!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sandy Navas

http://thepauls.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/ants.jpg

cucumber peels around their entry point (if you can find it)
BORAX - works on fleas, too!!
Cinnamon for the ants, too.

And, if you have a 6YO Rita living with you, she would definitely recommend an 'ant spanker'. They look like this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l654fNcLkj...ly_Swatter.jpg

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Oh, Sandy, your visual made me cringe...

And the picture of the ants made my skin crawl and I pulled my feet up from the floor...

Thanks, Sue! We've been having quite a problem here in CT as well. I'm thinking with all the rain in the past two months, they're just trying to find a way to avoid drowning! :icon_rolleyes:

A couple of years ago I got some liquid ant repellant at Ocean State Job Lots; it comes in a small (1" x 2.5") plastic tray that you open and leave on the window sill or under the baseboard or wherever, and it really worked great. All the ants were gone in about 48 hours and they did not come back at all for the rest of the year. Of course, now that we're infested again, I can't remember the name of it. So I'm going to try your remedy instead! :icon_happy:

Earwig control A key element of an earwig management program is trapping. Place numerous traps throughout the yard, hiding the traps near shrubbery and ground cover plantings or against fences. A low-sided can, such as a cat food or tuna fish can, with 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom makes an excellent trap. Fish oil such as tuna fish oil is very attractive to earwigs, or vegetable oil with a drop of bacon grease can be used. These traps are most effective if sunk into the ground so the top of the can is at soil level. Dump captured earwigs and refill cans with oil.

Other common types of traps are a rolled-up newspaper, corrugated cardboard, bamboo tubes, or a short piece of hose. Place these traps on the soil near plants just before dark and shake accumulated earwigs out into a pail of soapy water in the morning. Earwigs can also be dropped into a sturdy plastic bag and crushed. Continue these procedures every day until you are no longer catching earwigs.

Baby powder in the windowsills and door jambs works too. They won't cross it because of the little fine hairs on their legs.

It really does work! I haven't seen an ant in days, and I swear, the colony was eradicated in 24 hours.

We are being invaded by a billion grasshoppers outside. You can't walk without a hundred of them jumping on you. Got any remedies for that?