For at least a month now, my house has been plagued by ants. I find them on the tile, in the cracks of the sofa and climbing my bathroom walls. They never find any scraps of food or bits of grease to latch on to, but still they persist.

Desperate to get rid of these pests, I started searching for alternatives to  that horrible, toxic and smelly ant spray. Here’s what I found:

-Environment, Health and Safety Online recommends vinegar, cayenne pepper, salt and perfume placed at points of entry and at various points along the ants’ path.

-The Frugal Life has similar advice, with a huge list of testimonials from readers who add cinnamon, black pepper and bay leaves to the list of natural ant-deterrents.

-There’s even a WikiHow article recommending a whole onion or some drops of 100% orange oil to keep your house ant-free.

-Some of the best advice I found comes from the NCAP, an organization committed to reducing the use of harmful pesticides. If you can spot a colony by following the trail of ants until it disappears, the NCAP recommends pouring a pot of boiling water on it–what could be easier than that?

With a puppy in the house and several friendly neighborhood squirrels running around, there’s no way I was turning to pesticides before trying out these safer remedies. And with such great advice on the web, those ants won’t even know what hit ‘em!

Tags: alternative, ants, children, health, home, natural, pesticides, pests, pets, safety

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 7:43 am and is filed under General Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.