Ants are driving me insane! Any remedies? Desperate

[Sometimesfraught82]

Very house proud
Not a crumb around
But every summer we are invaded by ants

Remedies?
I have NO issue with very harsh chemicals!

TIA

Picked up two of these bad boys.

Fingers crossed!

Washing up liquid and water in a spray bottle, kills them instantly

Feed them. Get some jam or honey and put it outside away from the house then they'll eat it and not come inside. I do the same with wasps and they don't bother with the kitchen anymore.

Peppermint essential oil! Dab it on some cotton wool and wipe over a surface, and they won't cross it. It's best if you have an idea of where they're coming in so you can wipe it in front of their entrance. And obviously try to block up their entrance, too.

@Sometimesfraught82

Picked up two of these bad boys.

Fingers crossed!

Yes! Let us know how you get on. The little tabs are hard to break off but some small pliers do the trick. Ours all cleared off within 2 days.

I read that they use scent trails to tell the others where to follow., and this can disrupted with WUL.

OP the thing you’ve bought is perfect. Give it a day or two and you won’t see any more ants. As a back up, if you can see where they’re disappearing to outside, a kettle of boiled water will also kill some of the buggers. You can’t block holes for ants - they can get in under the doors and windows. But those ant poison things do work.

We got some of those poison things from Poundland and they seem to be working. At first we saw loads of ants congregating around them, but a few days on we've seen hardly any.

We also put ant powder down along the kickboards of the kitchen cupboards and the front of the appliances. We actually saw a couple inside the dishwasher!

Haven't read the thread so I might be repeating..... But I have found tea tree oil stops them in their tracks. I've heard the same about peppermint oil.

@LittleRa

Another recommendation for Ant Stop Bait Trap from Amazon

Yes this. I bought mine from Dyas last week, and in two days I've had no more ants.

You need to work out where they’re coming in and try and deal with that first. They tend to march through an area, they have a route. It’s actually quite fascinating.

We do something we call "vinegar towel" plus the kind of ant killer where they eat it then go back to the nest and die, which is supposed to kill the queen. It takes a couple days and only works if you have tile floors! We soak a towel in vinegar and wipe down the floor to kill the scent trails, then lay the towel across where they're coming in like a barrier, then we put out some of the ant killer. We used to have a terrible ant problem for years but we did this two summers ago and haven't seen ants since

I can’t believe it

They’ve been out a couple of hours

Not an ant in sight!!

Anyone have any advice for dealing with ants in lawns? I put 4 of those ant stop bait traps down last year, and put ant powder on all the anthills (25 or so of them, and it's only a small lawn!) but it was still teeming with them. It makes the lawn unusable. Anying you put on it (chair, blanket, guinea pig shelter...) is quickly covered by hundreds of ants. Only our 2nd summer in the house but last year we barely used the lawn at all it was so bad. I don't care if it kills the grass in places. Help!

Definitely bait stations. Might take a.couple but it keeps them focused while they're alive.

Baking powder mixed with icing sugar is meant to get rid of them

@Sometimesfraught82

Picked up two of these bad boys.

Fingers crossed!

They're the boys. Good luck.

Flour!

We used Ant Stop too and in less than 48 hours the problem was solved. We bought some from Amazon.

Another ZOMBIE ant thread!

Bicarb of soda mixed 50:50 with icing sugar. They're drawn to the sweetness but then the bicarb suffocates them. We used to have a gap in the skirting board in 1 room where ants would come out from for a few weeks every Summer but when we spread this in/around the gap, it worked remarkably quickly & they haven't returned since.