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Ants are pretty harmless by themselves. Unfortunately, they almost never travel alone, and an infestation of ants in your home can be a huge bother, not to mention the food you'll have to throw away. Trying to get rid of them using poisons can also be harmful to small children or any pets you may have. Here are some natural ways to scare those ants away and prevent them from coming back using just natural, organic products most people keep at home or can easily get at the grocery store. |
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Cucumber / Citrus Peel
Place cucumber or citrus fruit peel wherever you're seeing a lot of ants coming from. Citrus fruits and cucumbers are toxic to a certain tiny mushroom ants feed on, so they avoid them.
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Cinnamon Sticks and Cloves of Garlic
Follow the trail of ants and try to identify where they're entering from, such as windows, doors or other gaps found throughout your house. Place cinnamon sticks or cloves of garlic as close as possible to them. Cloves of garlic give off a strong smell, so it is recommended to leave cinnamon sticks, which have a more pleasant aroma. If you do choose garlic, make sure you peel it and cut it up before you put it down. You can put cinnamon sticks in your pantry as a preventative measure against future ant visits.
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Vinegar
Put some vinegar in a spray bottle and spray the places where you last saw ants, as well as their (suspected or known) points of entry. Vinegar harms their sense of smell and destroys the pheromones they leave behind them to help them find their way.
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Talcum/Chalk Powder
Create a small 'barrier' of talcum or chalk powder in the ants' points of entry. The talc, the material found both in talcum powder and chalk, destroys their sense of smell and makes it extremely hard for them to cross, so a little barrier will help prevent them from coming in where you don't want them.
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Black pepper
Sprinkle some black pepper on the trail of ants and see how they quickly disperse. Now you can track them and see where they came in from. Make sure you sprinkle some black pepper there, too.
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Mint
Another handy tool that disrupts the little intruders' sense of smell is mint. There are several ways you can use mint to do so. Firstly, you can plant it in your garden and around your house, close to doors and windows. Secondly, you can place some mint leaves by the windows of your home. Like the cinnamon sticks, this too can be placed in the pantry to prevent future intrusions.
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Cornmeal
If you encounter a really big problem with an ant infestation, you may want to use cornmeal. Cornmeal doesn't just prevent ants or makes them run away - it kills them. Ants see it as food, but in reality they can't digest it and eventually die after eating it. It won't kill them as quickly as poison, but it definitely works. It's also cheap and environmentally friendly to use in your home.
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Images Courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net
