Creating Ant Bait with Coffee Grounds and Vinegar

If you are experiencing an infestation of ants in your kitchen, laundry room or bathroom, you need to get to the ant colony rather than focusing on individual ants. A number of perfectly natural products can be used for this purpose. You can also, however, create ant bait with certain food products that, when ingested, will be deadly to the insect. Two easy solutions involve the use of common household products; one is coffee grounds and the other is vinegar.

Baiting Ants

In your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator you can find many common products that are effective at getting rid of ants. Without resorting to chemicals or costly exterminators, you will see results quickly, and these remedies are safe for pets and children.

Vinegar

If you have ants crawling all over your houseplants or your vegetable garden, combine one part vinegar with one part water in a spray bottle and apply directly to plants. Vinegar contains acids that are deadly to ants. Once ingested, they will not survive. Other home remedies for ant deterrence may involve the ants carrying indigestible food back to their colony. Vinegar is simply poison to ants, but it works nonetheless.

Coffee Grounds

If you can locate the anthill, pour used coffee grounds atop it. When the ants eat it, they will implode. By pouring it directly on the colony entrance, it will go a long way in deterring the ants from foraging through your kitchen or bathroom. If you have trails of ants marching over your counters or window sills, sprinkle coffee grounds in their path. This will have the same result as pouring it onto the anthill only you will focus on a single trail of ants.

Poison the Colony with other Foods

If you really want to get rid of ants, you have to trick them into taking something back to their colony that is incompatible with their constitution. They may take coffee grounds back to their colony to feed the queen and the many workers. Another idea is to use dry grits. Ants will eat the dry pieces, drink water and the grits will expand in their stomachs causing death. Cream of wheat will work the same way.

Other poisonous concoctions include mixing yeast with baking soda and either honey or molasses. Combined with the acids in their stomachs, the yeast and sodium bicarbonate create an indigestible mixture.

When ants have infested your kitchen, laundry room or bathroom, you can either attempt to deter them from spreading out or go directly for the colony. Several common household food products work well to either deter or kill ants. Vinegar is poisonous to ants and can be mixed with water and sprayed onto plants. Likewise, coffee grounds are another good natural poison for ants. Sprinkling grounds onto an anthill will attack ants at their source, whereas baiting their forage trails with it will deter the spread of ants. If you can get ants to take indigestible foods back to their colony, it could potentially wipe it out including the queen. Don’t bother with chemicals to rid your house of ants. Stick with natural remedies so as to pose no danger to pets or children.