cinnamon along the cracks where they get in and basil leaves - works pretty well!

I recently had an ant invasion and it was very clear that they were coming from the back door. I read somewhere that ants won't cross a chalk line, but i didn't have any chalk, so I sprinkled some baby powder along their entry point. Then I cleaned up their "trail" from the back door to the cat-food dish with a water & vinegar solution. No more ants.

Cinnamon has worked well to keep them out of my cats' food. The cats aren't too keen on it, so I put a ring of it down, put a plate in that and then the cat dishes in the plates. So long as I keep the kibble crumbs off the floor, the ants seem to stay outside.

My friend told about this chalk that they have in Chinatown, NY. She picked me up some. I drew a line across their path. Within 20 minutes I had never seen another ant in my kitchen again. I do not have a source but maybe someone else does.

Dish soap actually really well at our home in Topanga. Put some on a damp paper and wipe it along the ant lines, as well the cracks and by doors. They don't like the soap and can't follow the scent of the ants that came before them. You can try putting dish soap on a paper towel and use it as a place mat for your dog dishes too.

put a little mound of cinnamon on the floor, then nestle your pet's bowl on top of it... worked for me, and it smells good

I've had good luck with cucumber peels in the past.

A Buddhist monk told me that she takes a bucket and fills it full of ant goodies (a mixture of peanut butter and honey, I think it was) and puts it on its side. She then gradually leads them outside by moving the bucket. It may take the patience of a monk, but she said it works! I'm assuming she didn't have a pet either that would get in the bucket.

upon gathering ingredients to make banana bread

two thousand ants crawled into my kitchen
found a small hole leading into my kitchen
two thousand ants crept along moulding
quietly creeping following moulding
two thousand ants entered my pantry
the moulding turned in at the door to my pantry
two thousand ants found a dark corner
walked past each shelf in a dark corner
two thousand ants were hungry for something
stopped at the walnuts, hungry for something
two thousand ants set up shop in the walnuts
but didn't stop there, not in the walnuts
two thousand ants liked the pecans as well
walnuts and coconut and pecans as well
two thousand ants formed a singular line
from the tiniest hole to a shelf in my pantry
and i admire their drive and their keen sense of smell
i admire their tiny perfection as well
but two thousand ants are one-thousand-ninety-six beyond saving
so two thousand ants are unfortunately dead.

i had a horrible ant problem in my kitchen - i think due to the uneven-ness of the back door. after lots of cleaning and hiding food, and spraying vinegar/putting out ant traps i finally tore the kitchen apart - cleaned from top to bottom, and put a border of baby power all around the room. seems the talc is keeping them at bay better than anything else i have used.

we had ants in our finished basement... they were always after my toddlers crumbs, i vacuumed constantly but some crumbs are inevitable with a 2 yr old.... i read that baby powder worked pretty well so i lined the walls with it and we got rid of them! plus it smells nice!

Mix 1 teaspoon of boric acid with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Add water by the drop and stir until you have a thinnish liquid. Put a little puddle of it where the ants are coming in. They will gather around the edges like gnus around a watering hole in the Serengeti. Let them be. They will lap it up and take it home to regurgitate to the kids and the entire colony will be wiped out.

I have been using this for 20 years and it's never failed yet. (I am not a Buddhist, obviously.)

I sprinkle salt around the area they are congregating - its messy for some but I do not mind having salt on my cabinet shelves.

baby powder i second. I like the monks idea, I do escort the other spiders and bugs outside not sure if I would have the patience of a monk to escort ants out.

By the time my building switched from a good old fashioned kill 'em all exterminator to a holistic garlic oil guy, I had a "mature colony" of ants that had formed several terrifying nests all over my place. Nightmare you cannot imagine. The only thing that has worked are Max Force ant traps.

I've had success with cinnamon before also. After a week, no more ants.

Cinnamon right where they were coming in stopped them right away for us. No more ants!

I agree with Spanky!

There is a company that uses essentially that mixture: Terro. I had to order it online since my local stores didn't carry it. The key is that you need the ants to carry the mixture back to the queen. You can kill worker ants but it won't do anything. I felt comfortable using the product with my toddler since it's just boric acid and sugar. You place the traps near where you see the ants and within a few days, ants are GONE!

In Florida, for me, it's Terro, and maybe 2 or 3
days (be patient as they carry it to their friends).

Please be careful with the chinese ant chalk! It has things like arsenic in it, which is why you can't get it from big name retailers. It's probably fine for homes with consenting risk taking adult people, but any home with babies or pets might want to skip it.

Love Darlingcaro's poem.

For ants, we lay down cayenne. That helps a lot.

I tried all the "natural" solutions like cinnamon, cloves, and peppermint, and then went to Terro, as another poster mentioned...they make the solution, as well as little containers with the solution in it. I've also used the sugar/boric acid or borax solution, but it's harder to get right. And, if your ants are the savory loving type, it's not going to work. The good thing is that it's not toxic (in small quantities, obv) to humans...no raid or anything. Never fails. And it will last you forever.

I've never been to LA, but what's your humidity level like? I ask because in an apartment I lived in once, we had a major ant problem...UNTIL my old roommate moved out. And, no kidding, within three days after she moved out, the ants were gone and never returned. My new roommie moved in, and she was a bit messier than the previous roommie, even eating in her room, but still no ants ever came back.

I realized the issue: Our ants loved water/humidity (they like the shower and the backsplash in the kitchen. My first roommate hated the A/C, and I could never get her to turn the A/C on, so it was always warm and humid inside. When the new roommie moved in, she was all for A/C, and so without the 82 degrees inside plus humidity, we never saw ants again.

If your place is humid, perhaps try a dehumidifier, or at least put baking soda near the ants' entry point and see if drying them out helps? Or try the A/C if you don't use it already?

You cannot go wrong with boric acid.

We got those stupid ant hotel thingys, and shockingly (!), they didn't work. We woke up one morning to find the line to Antapalooza 2009 coming down from a window, traveling down a wall behind hanging pictures, waltzing right past our dumb traps and into the kitchen sink to devour what? I don't know. They were literally just hanging.
SO my really smart husband gets honey and pours it into the holes in the little ant bait traps, leaving a tiny drop at the entry way that lead back into the poison (or whatever mystery lies beyond). They really went after it.. Some of them going kamikaze into the honey and getting stuck. The others took the bait and were never heard from again.

Black pepper! Sprinkle black pepper around your house or building and the ants will never come in.

I've tried many of these 'natural' remedies and they work to varying degrees, but the problem with ants is that there are so damned many that even if some are deterred there are still many more that are not. The best deterrent I found was to crush the little buggers (rolling over them with the bug spray can works great) and then to leave the smashed carcasses for the rest of the colony to find. Touchingly, they carry their dead off for whatever form of ant decent burial, but more importantly they get the message that the road they have been taking is not safe. This takes a few days and a few rounds of massacre, but eventually they go away and stay away.

Does anybody know what that delicious dessert these plastic novelty ant are enjoying, and what its made from?
Looks like Jello or lemon custard and whipped cream? Please, H-E-L-P, this is a serious visual craving!

Trish: We have hardly any humidity in LA. Sooo dry.d

I didn't have any chinese ant chalk so my husband used regular chalk and it worked like a charm. I just happened to use some today in my pantry. It works particularly well on vertical surfaces like walls. Apparently they don't like to step in it because the powder inhibits the "sticking ability" of their feet. Maybe this is why the baby powder works too. We've also used Terro and that's worked well too. Just remember you have to leave it out for a few days.