Some herbs that will keep ants away are catnip, pennyroyal, peppermint, sage, and spearmint. Scattering the leaves of these plants in areas of your house where you've seen ants may keep them away. Tansy will work on sugar ants — the ones you see in your kitchen.
Fresh mint leaves can also be used to deter spiders, as well as ants, from entering our homes.
2. Lavender. Lavender may smell pleasant to humans but it's not so popular with ants, flies, moths, fleas and mosquitoes. A pot near your door can keep ants away; lavender in boiled water is thought to repel ants; and the oil can help to keep skin bite-free.
White vinegar, available at all grocery stores, is a cheap and effective way to kill and repel ants. It is also a natural cleaning agent. Try using a 1-to-1 vinegar/water mixture to clean hard surfaces, including floors and countertops, wherever ants are likely to travel.
Ants hate the smell of strong citrus fruits. Save your orange, lemon and grapefruit peels and scatter them around entry points. It's a natural way to deter ants without harming them.
Better Than Hopscotch: Ants will not cross a chalk line. Draw a chalk line in front of exterior doors, to prevent ants from coming into the house. You can also draw a chalk line around tables on the porch or patio, to keep pesky ants away while dining outdoors.
Repel ants
Leave coffee grounds where the ants are and they will carry it home and eat it. This method takes a few weeks to see, but after a while you'll notice a decrease of the ants population.
Two of the best ways to eliminate ants are Borax and diatomaceous earth. Essential oils, including peppermint and clove, are a natural way to repel and kill ants. Food and moisture attract ants, so keep your home clean and dry to get rid of ants permanently.
The sharp scent is too aggressive for ants, so they avoid it. This can be combined with peppermint oil and other scents to create a natural ant repellent cocktail that will deter ants from entering your home. The lemon eucalyptus tree produces an essential oil that also contains natural insect repellents.
5 – Marigolds
Not all ant-repellent plants are kitchen herbs. Marigolds bring ant-repellent aromatics as well as a pretty splash of orange color to your home. Compared to the other plants, these can be a little tougher to keep as houseplants.
Ants are particularly attracted to sugary substances such as nectar. They also collect seeds from plants such as cabbage, heather, viola, and radish. If you have any of these in your garden, this may explain why there are so many ants around.
Ants hate Vinegar. The smell of Vinegar will cause them to stay away from it or permanently leave the house. Ants crawl in a straight line, marching towards the food sources. The Vinegar solution will interfere with these pheromones, and the ants will get lost.
Cinnamon is often regarded as an effective DIY ant control option. It is believed that cinnamon acts as a natural repellent because ants cannot stand the smell. Also, if an ant inhales cinnamon, it can suffocate and die. Ground cinnamon can be sprinkled on an ant's pathway for them to inhale.
A line of chalk will stop ants in their tracks
Draw a line in chalk along the exterior of any external doors that lead into your home. Chalk is made from calcium carbonate, which ants hate, so they will be deterred to cross.
Flour. Wondering how to get rid of ants without dangerous pesticides? Sprinkle a line of flour along the backs of pantry shelves and wherever you see ants entering the house. Repelled by the flour, ants won't cross over the line. This is the best way to get rid of ants at home.
The main reason is they live in huge colonies, each of which has hundreds of thousands of individuals. Their sheer number makes it difficult to kill them all. Even if you locate their nest, destroy it, and kill every ant in it, there will still be many survivors who were out foraging at the time.
The sugar attracts the ants, and the baking soda is what kills them: It reacts with the acid in their digestive system, and they explode.
Milder winters provide ant colonies with the resources needed to grow larger and spread out into areas where they may not have thrived before. Because of this, homeowners can expect to see an increase in ant activity in 2022. Some of which may include species of ants that have migrated to a new area.
Vinegar doesn't really kill ants but it will certainly repel them away from your home. Ants can't stand strong smells and vinegar also negates pheromone trails which they produce to communicate. Without pheromone trails, ants won't be able to come back to your house.
Step 3: Spray Entry Points
Use this white vinegar solution to spray all entry points of your home, try to spry all windows, doors, baseboards and the common paths that ants would travel within your home. Give about an hour for this solution to take effect, then after a few hours the ants should be dead.
Chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemums deter ants due to the toxic pyrethrins present in the flowers of some of them. The type most frequently used in pesticides is Dalmatian daisy (Chrysanthemum or Tanacetum cinerariifolium). It grows to 18 inches in USDA zones 5 through 9 with ferny foliage and small white blooms.
Place ant deterring smells around the base of the plant – There are a few things that ants do not seem to like the smell of. Some of these things are mint or cinnamon. Try laying some mint or cinnamon-flavored gum around the base of the affected plant. Or just sprinkle some cinnamon around the base of the plant.