Try pouring a line of cream of tartar, red chili powder, paprika, or dried peppermint at the place where you think ants might be entering the house; they won't cross it. You can also try washing countertops, cabinets, and floors with equal parts vinegar and water.
Utilize Natural Repellents
Consider using essential oils like peppermint, lemon, or tea tree oil to deter ants from entering your home. Mix a few drops with water and spray the solution near entry points or along ant trails to create a barrier they won't cross.
Drawing lines with chalk or sprinkling baby powder around areas where you've noticed ants can disrupt their scent trails and keep them from advancing further. Applying copper tape around garden beds, flower pots, or the base of your home can create a barrier that ants are reluctant to cross.
Create a Barrier
Sprinkling cinnamon, cornmeal, cayenne pepper, or ground chalk on door thresholds, windowsills, and baseboards creates a barrier that ants won't want to cross. However, if you have pets, do your research to ensure you're not putting down anything that could be harmful.
Ants are very sensitive, and ant chalk takes advantage of that sensitivity by disrupting their pheromone trails. In essence, you can put a chalk line down near the area you want to keep ants away from, and the ants will look for another pathway. This works because ants use these trails for communication and navigation.
Strong-smelling essential oils, powders, and crushed plant leaves from cinnamon, mints, catnip, thyme, cloves, geranium and rosemary can repel ants (and smell good to humans, too). Sprinkle them across their paths, on kitchen countertops and along floorboards.
Ants won't cross a line of cinnamon or cloves–either the ground spice made into a paste or essential oils–and your house will smell like you've been baking all day. Enjoy some minty freshness. Mix one part peppermint oil with two parts dishwashing detergent and three parts water for another spicy ant deterrent.
TERRO® Perimeter Ant Bait Plus is another excellent way to form a home insect barrier and keep ants and other pests at bay. Ants are drawn to the weather-resistant granular bait, thanks to its sweet ingredients.
Flour, the type used for baking, is ideal for using in larders and kitchens. Again sprinkle a line of flour around the back and sides of shelving or wherever you see ants and they won't cross the line.
Household items like citrus fruits, black pepper, peppermint oil, cayenne, thyme, and lavender can create natural ant repellents. Great for avoiding pesticides or conventional ant traps! Mixing parts of these substances with water in a bottle and spraying the solution around the house can keep ants at bay.
Keep pests, maggots AND raccoons out of your trash cans with cinnamon. Just sprinkle a light layer at the bottom of the trash can and don't forget the lid. Those critters hate the smell and the powdery texture of cinnamon. #summertips #bugfree.
Salt, baby powder, lemon juice, chalk, vinegar, bay leaves, cinnamon, or peppermint oil are a few items that you have around your home that will stop ants from coming inside. Lay these out in areas where you see ants, and they'll stop using that area as an entrance into your house.
You may love your morning coffee, but ants could do without it. Another natural way to deter ants, sprinkle coffee grounds outside and around your garden. The smell repels them and they'll be looking for a less caffeinated place to hang out.
Talcum powder
Another substance we love but ants hate is talcum powder.
Ants are brilliant creatures. They usually send out groups for investigations. When you squash an ant, the fluids release pheromones, which will signal danger to the ants in the vicinity. When the investigation group comes across the dead, they return to the hive and relay vital information.
A common home remedy for ants is to use a piece of chalk to draw a border around the common entry points for ants. It is thought that this works as ants won't cross the chalk line, wanting to preserve the scent trail.
Fipronil. Since it is less toxic than hydramethylnon, fipronil is a suitable poison. An ant's nervous system is attacked by fipronil when it comes into contact with an ant. Ants are known to frequent ant nests and entry points, so fipronil is typically placed there.
There are many products available for this at your local hardware store such as caulk or petroleum jelly, but you could also try using a very fine, silty powder (such as cinnamon, cayenne pepper, diatomaceous earth, corn starch, etc.) to plug any holes the ants are using to come into your home.
Ants typically find the smell of pepper irritating. So, sprinkle pepper around your baseboards and behind appliances, or anywhere ants generally are located, and the scent will keep them away.
Unfortunately, it's not an instant knockout. It takes a bit of time for the baking soda to do its magic and wipe out the ant colony. When ants consume the baking soda mixed with a tempting treat, it gradually disrupts their digestive system, causing them to meet their untimely demise.
Vinegar only remains effective for as long as the scent lingers. When the solution dries up, homeowners need to reapply the solution in the problem areas to keep ants away. However, it's important to remember that vinegar shouldn't be treated as the main line of defense against ant infestations.