Homemade Helpers - Ants

Lately, one problem we're having is ANTS. And nothing we've bought seems to be working, except...as I noted in a past post, magnesium powder (found in some types of body powder, but read the ingredients to be sure). It seems to be working, since I have not had ONE ant on my bedside table since Adam sprinkled a border of power around me. Because I needed to keep water by my side (from all the stupid pills I had to take), I needed to have an area which was ant-free. They were getting into everything before! But magnesium only keeps them away; it doesn't get rid of them by any means...They then developed a thing for the kitchen counter top.

So, on to the next solution on the list. Adam ordered some boric acid. We can't get it here in Oz all that easily, so he had to order some online (from Oztion.com.au). In North America, it should be pretty easy to access - it's called Borax, and you can use it for stain removal as well. Should be near the laundry stuff -? I have no idea. Anyhow, we're going to make a mixture of that with some egg yolk, which these ants seem to really go for, and hopefully get rid of the colony. It seems ants have discerning palates, and these ones don't have the problem I do - a sweet tooth. They must have protein tooth.

We had tons of ants in our N.Vancouver Slums apartment, and there was nothing that was working to get rid of them. So I used to just feed them - outside. Then they wouldn't bother to come inside. I used to leave pieces of fruit outside, on their trail, and sure enough, they'd stay outside. But who wants to feed ants for the rest of their lives? You might end up getting attached to them, poor little buggers.

So for a sweet solution ant killer, try a mixture of 1/4 tsp boric acid, 1/8 cup corn syrup, and 1.5 tsp water.


For a protein solution, I think Adam did a 1 to 1 ratio using only the yolk, but you need to make sure they can actually live long enough to bring the food back to the nest (ie. not too much boric acid)


The egg yolk mixture worked perfectly for a while. The ants loved it. We also tried the corn syrup mixture, which worked for a little while, but a day later they were done with it, and went back to the egg. We also tried peanut butter, but they didn't even touch it. Supposedly it takes a few days, up to over a week to see the results, but even 24 hours later there are significantly less ants. There was so many ants before, I couldn't even prepare dinner, and we ordered pizza instead.

One of the best ways to keep them away, is to barricade yourself with cinnamon. They HATE it. It works very well. They decided to make a new nest in my orchid, so I baited the pot, and then surrounded it with cinnamon, and they died soon enough, and no more entered. If you have an ant problem, it's a great way to keep them away...but they don't die...I'm not sure we'll ever get rid of these guys, but we're trying...


**Update:
It's been months now, that we've had ants on the counter, but it seems like if you have the vigilance, and keep baiting, you should be able to get rid of them. We've succeed for the most part, but then they just come back if you leave some dirty dishes sitting out, so be diligent! But then, who actually knows if they left because of us, or because the seasons have changed...