The very best DIY homemade ant killer recipe that you can make with ingredients you already have at home. A must-have recipe for all homeowners.
I don’t know about in your house, but in the early spring every year, I seem to get ants popping up around our home, and having this recipe for the best homemade ant killer has really come in handy. Sometimes there are a whole bunch of ants, sometimes it’s just a few, but they always show up. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is an old house, and there are probably lots of little holes in the walls for them to get through. This easy homemade ant-killing solution has been just the ticket to solve this pest problem for me.
Why I Decided to Try This Out
This year, I’ve only seen a few in my bathroom. Last year though, our living room was practically taken over all of a sudden. Someone must have dropped a piece of cookie or had a sugary spill one day, and that was it. They were coming from a corner of the room, and no amount of cleaning or squashing could keep them from coming back.
For some reason, I just can never bring myself to put out those scary poisonous-looking ant traps that you can buy in stores. They make me nervous, so I’ve always just kind of suffered with ants and tried to squish them as I saw them. Then I discovered this magical little recipe, and they were gone within 24 hours. Completely. We haven’t had any house ants back in the living room this year, either!
Ingredients for the Best Homemade Natural Ant Killer
This recipe is so simple but so powerful, and I’ve found it to be long-lasting as well. Baiting them this way with the ant killer seems to wipe out the whole colony and gets rid of the issue for good. Here’s what you need!
- 1 cup of granular sugar
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1 tablespoon of Borax. (The box sometimes also looks like this: Borax Laundry Booster, 76 oz Box)
Mix it all together in a jar, and you’re ready to take action!
If you have pets or kids, you’ll want to keep the solution away from them. Coming into contact with a small amount of the solution is okay, but too much can cause problems, so it’s better to be safe. One idea is to put it in an old plastic container with holes poked in the lid for the ants to get in and put a little bit of plain sugar water (no Borax) outside of the container to lure the ants over. Then they’ll keep searching the area and hopefully find the actual ant killer hidden in the container.
If you happen to have older floors with peel ‘n stick tile or linoleum, or if you have vinyl floors of any kind, you can just put a dob of the solution right on the floor right where you saw the ants, and they’ll be absolutely sure to find it.
If you have wood floors, laminate, or natural stone on your floors that you want to protect, just take a shallow plastic lid out of the recycling bin and use that to hold a bit of your ant-killing solution.
To protect pets and kids from getting into it, I usually just take a plastic food lid, prop it up with a block, and use that to cover everything. I’m mostly worried about the cat finding it, so this prevents that problem. It’s not the most elegant solution, but as I mentioned earlier, this ant-killing juice works quickly, so you won’t have this weird-looking contraption out for long.
Placement is Key
However you set up your solution, you’ll want to place it right where you previously saw the ants walking to be sure they find it. Once they do, they’ll go get all their buddies, and they’ll all carry it back to the nest. Everyone will party and have a big feast and then they’ll die.
Now it’s sounding really mean and cruel, but trust me, you’ll be glad you won’t be worrying about ants again this year!
How to Use Homemade Ant Killer for Outside
If you’re dealing with colonies of black ants outside, your first thought might be to use some kind of chemical insecticide for all your insect control needs, but this homemade version is actually a perfect solution for getting rid of ants in the garden or in walkways around your house as well. Whether you can see visible ant hills or you just have evidence of ants nesting under your driveway or paving stones, you want to take care of the issue if it’s close to your house because there’s always a chance that the ants might come inside and then they become a real nuisance.
The way you use this borax ant killer for exterior ant control is pretty similar to the way you would use it inside, but you don’t have to worry too much about it ruining anything the way you need to be cautious of flooring inside. The one exception is if you’re using it on wood decking, as it may soak in and discolor the wood, so use a little lid or a dish to set the ant killer out in that case.
You can place little spoonfuls of the ant killer on top of the mulch in your garden or even right on your lawn wherever you see ant activity, but I find the very best place is on pavement or a solid surface of some kind so the solution doesn’t soak in too quickly and gives that ants time to find it when they’re out foraging for a food source. This way, your can also monitor your bait stations and make sure things are working as they should be.
This solution has worked so well for me over the years, and I’m excited to share this easy trick with you too. Good luck with your ants!
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.