BiggerPockets Founder · HI · Member since 2008 · 16k+ posts · 5k+ votes
Hey guys -
I've got a small ant problem and want to get rid of them without all the chemicals, sprays, etc. Does anyone have any effective techniques that work to get rid of them?
Real Estate Investor · ten mile, TN · Member since 2009 · 1k+ posts · 374 votes
16y
Originally posted by Financexaminer:
Hi, Amber my mom used that and it took awhile but worked! Now here is another issue, fire ants. If you have those critters, take a shovel and pick up some and put them on another pile of them. They are seperate nests and they will kill each other off! Bill
FIRE ANTS
Here's a really sneaky way to get rid of fire ants. (All's fair in love and the war against insect pests.) The only way to get rid of an infestation is to assassinate the queen. Wait until a dry spell is about to end. Sprinkle instant grits on the fire ant hill. The workers will carry the grits to the queen for her royal meal. She'll eat the grits and when it rains, she'll drink. And that's what will kill her. The grits will expand in her stomach and she'll "bloat" to death. Once she's out of the way, the leaderless ants will die off. (This suggestion came courtesy of the Tightwad Gazette II book.)
Bernalillo, NM · Member since 2017 · 4 posts · 0 votes
8y
My Mom would leave a jar of honey out in the kitchen, the ants would come to collect and get stuck in the honey. Its worked well but didn't eradicate them.
Debary, FL · Member since 2017 · 110 posts · 113 votes
8y
I live in Florida and ants are an utter b####. I have to share this story. I had a property with a cheesy old 1' retention wall made from decaying decades-old wood. I removed it and installed a block one, but it took me a few weeks to take the old ant-infested wood I put in my truck bed to the dump. I eventually noticed that I would occasionally see these odd-looking black ants with long legs on my dashboard or in soda cups when I forgot to throw them out.
I eventually figured out that those ants in that wood somehow colonized my truck! I tried a few tricks like plates of boric-acid laced jelly to kill them with no luck. I then bought a new rental property where my truck actually fit in the garage (it's just a humble Dakota) and I used bug bombs on the truck twice. That ended my ant infesting for good.
Moral: these hippy-approved "chemical free" solutions to ant problems are BS for 2 reasons: 1) EVERYTHING is a chemical. Water is a chemical. 2) Ants are evil. The baits I put in my truck of plates of sugary food with boric acid (all chemicals BTW) just didn't work because this low-tech Borg collective was evil and refused to die until I hit it with Admiral Janeway-quality chemicals.
Over the years, we’ve tried just about everything including shoving sprees into a bottle of Pepsi and turning the 2-Liter upside down into the ant hill.
What we found most effective is diatomaceous earth. It’s all natural and works just like boron but will not kill small children or pets. Mix it with sugar and let the ants take it back to their colonies.