Natural Pest Control for Ants

You probably remember me raving on about how we controlled ants in our house with a daily floor mop of Grapefruit Oil. (It has to be daily because as I’m a Wildlife Carer we almost always have some kind of Honeyeater in care, who manages to squirt honey poop out through the bars of their temporary cage-home which ants loooooooooove).

Well, the Grapefruit Oil has worked for us up till a few weeks ago…

Ugggggg!

We had new people move in next door and they had ants, so they sprayed and, I quote the woman when I spoke to her “I think we must have stirred the ants up, because there were more and more after we sprayed – so we kept spraying.”

Gee, that’s great guys! I think the ants moved out of her place and into ours…  Acturally I think every ant in the local suburban area has gravitated to our house!

The ants marched through from our garage into our house every hour of every day for about two weeks. Fool that I am…

I mopped and mopped and mopped…

I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed…

I filled in every possible entry hole with sealant…

I even stuffed a garlic clove in the gap between the floor edging and the garage wall (too big a space for sealant)…

I tried Grapefruit Oil, Lavender Oil – and even delved back into the heady depths of Peppermint (very mildly though)…

…and they kept coming.

LTSH (Long Term Suffering Husband) began vacuuming them up on a daily basis when he heard the terrible despair in my voice… but they kept coming.

The next option was going to be the Borax (a natural poison – but still a poison!)

But then I tried clove oil.

I sprinkled some drops around the floor edging in the garage, and added a few drops to the mop bucket… and mopped…

And they haven’t come back. In fact, we’ve been ant-free for just under a week now.

The clove oil is strong – but it isn’t overpowering, and I haven’t had any nasty side effects (Peppermint Oil gave me a migraine which led to vomiting and a hospital visit a while back). Use just a few drops and I’m sure you’ll have the same success I’ve had. Others say ground cloves are a great deterrent too.

The other upside to the Cloves are their pleasant smell, kind of exotic and warm and yummy. It’s funny – what ants detest, makes me hungry!

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