Get Rid of Ants from Your Property for Good

A general rule of thumb is where there’s one ant, there’s thousands more. And if you’re seeing them in your house, that can be an incredibly worrying thought. On average, there are as many as one quadrillion ants that inhabit the UK[i] – and sometimes it feels as though every single one of them lives on your property. Although this is impossible (we hope), there’s no denying that when you’re having an ant problem, it feels as though they’ve taking over. Never fear though – we’ve put together the best advice on how to permanently get rid of ants, including the use of natural repellents, to eliminate the problems both in and outside your house for good. Eliminating the problem now and remaining vigilant about it after could save you from a major infestation, so let’s look at Sloane & Sons Stylish Chairs best advice for ensuring an ant-free home.

The Benefits of Ants

Before we get into the ways of getting rid of ants though, although they are no doubt a nuisance, the little critters are surprisingly beneficial to the garden. Driving them out of the kitchen or bathroom is the best idea, obviously, but completely obliterating their colonies from your property could potentially be detrimental in the long run. Some of the benefits of keeping ants in the garden include:

• Their Tunnels – Ants create a maze of tunnels beneath the ground, and these labyrinths help vital nutrients, water and moisture reach the roots of your plants and grass
• Fertilizer – The leaves ants use in their nests will help fertilize the surrounding plants
• Their Food Choice – Ants tend to feast on dead animals, organic waste and insects that attack and damage the lawn
• They Bring In Wildlife – Many birds, insects and mammals will eat ants, and keeping them in your garden will bring these animals in, which in turn will nurture the ecosystem.

If you want to reap any of these benefits but are still wanting to drive ants out of your home, try and stick with non-poisonous methods. Using insecticides will kill most of the ants and likely drive any surrounding colonies, as well as beneficial insects, out of your garden, but using more natural methods will mean your garden will thrive while your kitchen remains ant-free.

Why Ants Come into Your Home

Ants are scavengers, and this is the main reason behind their entering people’s homes. They are constantly on the hunt for food or water in summer – when you are more likely to see them inside – and will go anywhere they smell it strongly enough. The main culprits are sugary substances, which are a favourite of ants, so anything from fizzy drink spillages to left out desserts will attract them into your house.

As they search for food, ants leave a pheromone trail to help them find their way back to abundant foraging grounds, such as your kitchen. However, this scent trail will also guide other ants into your home, which is what tends to lead to an infestation.

Heavy rains and other extreme weathers can also bring an increase of ants into your house because they destroy their nests. In this case, the ants will look for a new place to set up camp. Usually this is in safer outdoor spaces, such as under steps or in walls, but sometimes they will come into your house to get away from the extremities.

Signs of Ants

There are a few things to look out for if you fear you’re getting a bit of an ant problem on your hands. A few ants occasionally don’t equal an infestation, but if you see any of these, it’s likely you’re having more than chance visitors into your home.

• Ant Nests – Check in the cracks of pavement or pathways and walls, around lawns, beneath steps, beneath or inside rotting wood and in shaded areas as this is where multiple species of ant have been known to make their nests. Different species of ant create different nest types, but keep your eye out for small piles of soil, dirt, wood chippings or a similar material as this is most common.
• Pathways – Although the pheromone trails that ants leave behind are invisible to humans, if you see a few of them traveling in a line, it’s likely you’ve found the trail they will continue to use that leads them to the perfect food source in your house.
• Seeing Multiple Live Ants – An ant or two every now and again normally isn’t anything to worry about however, if you’re seeing large quantities of life ants, whether separately or in a trail, it’s highly likely that you have an infestation.

How To Get Ants Out Of Your Home

If you’re more certain than ever now that you have an infestation of ants in your house, there’s no need to panic. Although seeing the little insects can be an annoying surprise, there are many ways to rid your house of them, and most of them are fairly easy. Many of these will not harm the ants, only remove their reason to come back, and when they realise they can no longer find what they need, they will quickly move on, so you can keep them on your property but out of your house, if that’s what you want.

• Cover, seal or put away all food
• Deep clean the kitchen, or whichever room the ants frequent the most – make sure all crumbs are brushed up
• Ensure all spillages are cleaned up as soon as they are made
• Seal up any cracks or holes in the walls, floorboards, or skirting boards and around doors
• Use a diluted solution of vinegar or bleach to dispel the scent trail and repel any ants coming back. Vinegar and bleach will kill ants, so check the area for a few days after to see if any ants have tried to come back and wipe it down again if they have.
• There are quite a few strong ant killing sprays on the market that take only a hour or so to do the job
• As a last resort, you can use insecticidal baits. Recommended for full blown infestations, insecticidal baits will get rid of your ant problem but also cause harm to other beneficial insects, such as ladybirds and mantises, so don’t use them outdoors and ensure that any you do use are specifically for ants.
• You can also call in a professional to lay insecticides for you and advise you what to do following their visit.

How To Get Ants Out Of Your Garden

It’s not recommended to go on an ant killing spree if they aren’t causing you any trouble – there’s no need to kill things just for the sake of killing them. Removing ants from inside your house is necessary when they become a nuisance, but if ants in your garden aren’t taking over the entire plot or posed to become a threat to you, your family or your home, there is no reason to rid your garden of them

That being said, if you are having a bit of a nightmare with ants in your garden, there are some things you do to take back control. Getting ants out of your garden calls for more extreme methods than inside the house because you’ll likely have to get rid of the whole nest or, if you can’t find it, the majority of the colony – there are plenty of natural ways to go about this, so don’t worry about your plants or lawn. Here are some tried and tested methods proven to eradicate ants both in and outside of their nest:

• One of the most effective ways of ridding your garden of ants is mixing boric acid – a renowned ant killer – with sugar to form a paste and placing small amounts of the paste near the nest entrance. The ants will be attracted to the sugary substance and carry it back to the Queen as a food source, which will kill the Queen as well as the colony.
• Ant killer gels are available at most garden centres, and work in the same way as boric acid and sugar
• Try and find as many entrances to the nest as possible and pour boiling water down them all. It’s best to repeat this several times to ensure that all the ants are dead.
• Mix dish washing soap and any kind of cooking oil (about half a teaspoon of each) with about 950ml of water to fill a spray bottle. This can be used on ants outside of the nest and the nest itself.
• Pour a litre of white vinegar directly onto the nest – white vinegar will also kill individual ants.
• Ant killer poisons (powdered form is best for in and around the house) will likely eradicate the problem however, precautions are needed. Make sure that children and pets can’t get near the poison, keep it away from plants and soil because it can be toxic and try to spread it when the weather is in your favour because wind can blow the poison around your garden and rain can wash it away.
• If an invasion begins in the garden then spreads into the home and none of the above methods have worked, you should call a professional in to sort out the problem once and for all

Keep On Top of The Problem

Ants are fairly common home invaders, but any of the above methods have been proven to work in winning your property back. Check any previous problem areas as well as the nesting site after you’ve taken the steps to remove the issue to ensure that all the ants are well and truly gone, and don’t hesitate to break out any of these techniques at the sight of even one ant in the future to stop your property getting overrun.

Have any ant busting tips of your own? Let us know in the comments below!

Sources

[i] https://www.amesgroup.uk.com/blog/the-definitive-guide-uk-ants/#:~:text=One%20quadrillion%20ants%20litter%20the%20UK.%20Yes%2C%20that%E2%80%99s,and%20find%20out%20a%20bit%20more%20about%20them.

Anna Sharples

Office and marketing manager for Sloane & Sons Stylish Chairs, who sell a range of high-quality tub chairs, accent chairs and more.