Ants In My Pans
Not in my pants. The situation wasn’t that dire. But about a week ago I awoke to find ants marching all over my kitchen counters and some of them even had the gall to traipse right across our lovely eco-friendly skillet that we had left on the stove to dry. Oh and speaking of our teflon-free/petroleum-free nonstick cookware set that we got this Christmas (a set of Greenware from Cuisinart cookware that we got from Bed Bath & Beyond), here’s the update that many people have been clamoring for: we’ve been using them regularly and can’t get over how awesome they are. Seriously, we love them and highly recommend them to anyone who’s looking to green up their kitchen.
But enough about our pots and pans. Back to the ant problem. Can you believe the nerve of those little buggers invading our kitchen as if they were the ones who spent 113 days without a functioning sink or stove during the renovation? Being truly reluctant to bring any toxins or poisons into our home (and especially into our kitchen) we resisted the urge to snatch up a bunch of ant baits, and instead we made like ants and let our fingers do the walking, er, marching. We just googled “natural ant remedies” and learned that there were a slew of non-toxic everyday items that we could use instead. Here are a few of the all-natural anti ant solutions that we found here.
- Sprinkle cinnamon where you see ants congregating to get them to back off speedily.
- Fill a squirt bottle with plain white vinegar or 50% apple cider vinegar and 50% water and spray down surfaces where you see ants a few times a day.
- Sprinkle black pepper wherever the ants are marching, taking care to find their entry/exit point and sprinkle pepper in that crack as well.
- Shaklee’s Basic H (a nontoxic soap made of soybeans) can be watered down and sprayed where ants are entering/exiting to keep them at bay (this formula may bubble paint so it’s best to use it on counters and other soap & water friendly surfaces).
- Placing bay leaves in corners and cracks where ants emerge can immediately run them off (and they can be left behind canisters and in corners for long-term ant repelling).
- Substituting garlic cloves for bay leaves is also said to work.
So which options from the delightful non-toxic menu above did we choose?
We went with a tasty black pepper and bay leaf recipe. We just sprinkled some black pepper around the counters and into the crack behind the counter where we clearly saw the ants emerging and then shoved a bit of bay leaf down the crack along with laying a few of them out on the counter. We loved that both of these dry ingredients wouldn’t threaten to stain our granite counters or compromise the safety of our cooking surfaces in any way. And the best part? It worked like a charm. No more ants in my pans.
Do you guys have any all-natural remedies to share with the group? How do you avoid bringing chemicals and poisons into your home while keeping it pest free? We live for this stuff so spill the (green) beans.
Leave a comment
If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Garlic cloves didn’t work for us, so I guess not each remedy is good for ALL ants. If one solution doesn’t work, keep trying. Oh by the way last week we woke up to hundreds of flying ants clustered up on the cupboards, there were so many that we had to vacuum them. We just can’t find where they’re coming from! I guess we’ll try bay leaves and pepper next, thanks for this post.
As I understand it, the most important thing is to obliterate their scent trail – they know where their buddies have walked, and can follow it even after regular soap & water sometimes. I think rubbing alcohol is supposed to get rid of their trail, if that’s natural enough for you!
In other news, I was excited about your quick and moveable (but permanent-looking!) fire pit, so I forwarded the link to my hubby and he loved the idea just as much! He’s already scoped out some old bricks & pavers that have been sitting at his work for months, so hopefully he can snag them and we’ll have ourselves a fire pit by early June. Yay!!
soo. i just voted today and you guys are only 68 spots behind first place. i’m sure you already know this, but i got really excited!!! anyway…so excited!
I’ve had success with a product I got at Whole Foods that is basically diatomaceous earth mixed with clove oil. I’m sure you could make up a similar thing yourself. The bonus is that it makes the house smell like cloves.
I just found the product I was talking about listed on amazon. It’s called AntEater
http://tinyurl.com/ksslwj
Hi there,
I have used (with much success) used dryer sheets. I stuff a piece of them in the “entrance” of the ant “line” and poof, they are gone and don’t come back! We also planted mint in one front border…now, it grows like crazy, but the ants don’t like it and we have not had an ant problem since… we actually mow the mint. it is lovely. Love your site, btw.
The 1950s house I just moved into has ants and my fiance and I have tried almost everything from Home Depot…Maybe we need to be more natural – I’m definitely going to try these green solutions! Thanks!
I have to first say that I love your blog! Secondly, I am so fortunate that my parents started using Shaklee when I was 10, I am now 40 and I have used it ever since. Not only do I love that it is non-toxic, but also that it works!(My parents and I were Green before Green was cool!) Love that my family stays safe and that I am not polluting the environment!
Thanks for your fun and entertaining (not to mention informative) blog!
Jacquie
I’m all for repelling and prevention rather than killing where possible. Calking / recalking cracks helped us finally (I hope) solve our ant problem. Biggest entry was the countertop around the sink. We also worked patiently on cleaning the scent trails and eventually they gave up and went away. Bay leaves did nothing for us, but we didn’t combine with pepper.
Wow! I can’t believe that actually worked!! I will definitely keep this in mind if I ever have an “invasion”!
We are fighting the same problem right now in my house, and I have to say that the ants seem to be unbeatable. I’m using freshly peeled cucumber skin, but I really like the cinnamon stick idea, will try!
For those of us not opposed to actually eradicating the ant colony rather than just deterring it, I have used the following “green” ant-killing concoction for several years, with great success.
Please note, Boric Acid is not safe for pets or humans to consume. In this small quantity it’s not guaranteed to hurt your pets if they eat it, but play it safe and keep it out of their reach.
1 Tblsp Boric Acid (drugstore)
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
Carefully mix it all up. To distribute it, I put some in things such as plastic lids from take-out containers. Then hide it where the ants go marching by. Because I have pets, I place mine under the stove in my kitchen, and they march right up to it.
I also dribbled some in cracks in the doorway, where it seeped down out of reach of the pets.
The trick now is to keep your hands to yourself and wait patiently as the ants travel to and from the mixture. They will carry it back to the queen, and feed it to her. This is why proportions are important; the mixture needs to be weak enough to let the ants live long enough to march it back to the queen, yet strong enough that after a short time it will kill them.
I’ve recently tried both the cinnamon and vinegar methods and have been fairly happy with both of them. I’ve still had a couple friendly visitors here and there, but for the most part the pack seems to be gone. I’ll have to try the bay leaves — that seems like a great idea!
Ewww… silly ants.
In our previous house, we’d have ants at the front door every year when the weather warmed up. I’d just spray the tile floor in front of the door with the all-natural “bug spray” that we use on the kiddos in the summer (available at health food stores). I know the main ingredients are eucalyptus and lemon grass – smelled ultra herbally in that room as I sprayed every morning for about a week, but after that they were gone! :)
In the current house, we started to have tons of BIG ants at the beginning of May. Sam found a gap in the exterior caulking around the front door – that’s where the little buggers were getting in. He recaulked it, and no more ants :)
XO,
Jacci
I’ve successfully used molasses mixed with dry yeast (put a gob of this sticky mixture on a piece of cardboard — too sticky to put directly on anything). If the ants are coming in a non-food room, that is probably because they it is ‘swarm’ season and they are looking to create a new home with a new queen. Activity will die down by the end of the week as ‘swarm’ season ends. If you go outside at twilight, you should see a mess of dragonflies — they like to eat the ant nymphs. You should use your deterrents at the external entry points as well — doorframes, windowframs(especially windowframes!), and around pipes. Ants will move around at night too, so if you have a red light (they can’t see red) – you can spy on them. To protect against carpenter ants, make sure there are no trees touching your house, no nearby branches, and no rotting wood nearby.
I wish I could find out where ants are getting in. I find about one a day at completely random places in the house.
Despite Reverence for All Life, I kill them, hoping it will dawn on the ant colony, enter the house, you do not return :-) but so far, no luck.
We use a product called Terro. It comes in a little bottle like craft paint comes in. You squeeze a little puddle on a scrap of paper or cardstock and leave it near the entry point. It has worked in our kitchen and bathroom. It is non-toxic–just a corn syrup base and Borax which is a laundry product that our moms used to use when washing our diapers.
Well I read this post with GREAT interest because the little buggers are invading our kitchen! Grr.
Two weeks ago when I first noticed them I spread bay leaves everywhere. Every. Where. Because I’m not entirely sure where they are coming from (looks to be the window). Now it looks like a psycho chef lives there AND they’re STILL coming back! Maybe I’ll try adding pepper? My friend swears that lemongrass oil and water mixture (you can google “lemongrass oil, ants” like I did. :-) totally is the bees’ knees so I’m off to the healthfood store this weekend. She said it also has the added bonus of making the room smell a bit like a Fruit Loop. :-)
I have tried almost all of the above recs save for the raw grits. And you know what? The ants came back the very next day(s). So, what to do? A friend recommended Penny Royal Oil, a $10 purchase from the local health foods store (Rebeca’s in Charlottesville). I mixed three drops with a squirt of Meyer’s dishwashing liquid, and the ants have been away after some heavy VA rains for almost a week. Yes.
Anyone have tips on a great product for ants outside? Just bought a home and it appears the retaining walls, driveway and planter are infested! Since it’s outdoors I’m a little less concerned about toxins (no kids or dogs) but I don’t want to kill the grass & plants.
Julie,
A pot of boiling water, you may need two pots in the same area or to re-treat a day or so later, seems to work. I’m not sure how you’d apply it to the retaining wall, though. Probably the plants will not be too happy, but at least it would help the driveway.
Hi Sherry,
also reluctant to leave a trail of toxic chemicals in my kitchen, I found some powdered garlic, sprinkled it around, and the ants left for new pastures.
Alyzande
Thanks for the tip! We tried the cinnamon and added some bay leaves just for good measure, we have been ant free for a week! Yay!!!!
-Britta
Ants are natural predators to termites…so I will rejoice if I find ants in our new (to us) house after we will have to spend 14k to fix termite damage.
That’s so interesting Tania! We’ve never heard that. Thanks for the tip! We would much rather have ants than termites, that’s for sure!
xo,
s
If they are carpenter ants they like damp wood to nest in. They don’t eat the wood, they hollow it out. Look for any roof and plumbing leaks and get them fixed asap. We just found a flaw in our “new” roof and a lack of flashing at a gutter. Hopefully we’ll fix it and our ant problems will be better.
We used Ecospec products on the carpenter ants and they seem to work well.
For common pavement ants, soapy water works well.
Keeping a couple of bay leaves on each self of your pantry will deter wevels from coming and infesting your food.
I am trying the cinnamon method right now in my kitchen. I always have ants around my sink and counters this time of year. I’m hoping the cinnamon works as nothing else has. Fingers crossed! Thanks for the tip!
David
Update: Well, I just checked my kitchen countertops and sink and there are no ants!!! Yesterday they were all over the place, so the cinnamon is definitely working! My question is, for how long should I leave the cinnamon there before vacuuming it up? I’m thinking I’ll leave it for at least the weekend.
David
So glad! I’m not sure how long to leave it. Maybe for three days and if the ants come back try switching it with new cinnamon (in case it loses its potency) and if they don’t just vacuum it up and call it a day. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Thanks for your response. I think I’ll leave the cinnamon there until tomorrow. I just got home from work and not an ant to be seen. I might have to make frequent cinnamon applications, but this is a lot safer and cheaper than using an exterminator. I’m really glad I found you guys! LOVE the whole blog!
Best,
David
Aw thanks so much David. Glad you found us too! Good luck with those ants.
xo,
s
Just an update to let you know that the ants are STILL gone from that first cinnamon treatment in the kitchen. Here’s another tip. I have a lot of herbs in blue ceramic pots outside my front porch. Several of them got infested with–you guessed it, ants! Well, guess what I did? I put about 3 tablespoons of cinnamon in a large pitcher, then filled it with water. I watered the plants with it and the ants did a rapid evacuation. Haven’t seen them since!
If you’re ever passing through Chapel Hill (aka Southern Heaven), feel free to stop by and say hello! I lived in Spain for two years and the inside of my house is definitely influenced by that!
Warm regards from NC,
David
Love the update and the sweet invitation! So glad the cinnamon trick worked so well!
xo,
s