Life Hack: How to keep ants away from your home and garden

Spot some unwelcome visitors? Here's how to rid yourself of ants this summer

Picture: Maksim Shutov/Unsplash

Summer is here and with it the return of longer evenings, sunnier days and, for many, unwelcome ant visitors. Ants excrete chemicals to lead the rest of their colony to a food source, so if you spot one little soldier in your kitchen you should expect its friends and family to turn up too.

If you want to keep ants away from your home and garden, surround the area with scents they hate. Many kitchen staples will do this, saving you from splurging on sprays. Cinnamon is one such scent: sprinkle it along doorframes, windows and anywhere you think ants could enter your home to keep them away. 

Similarly, ants hate the smell of vinegar so it is worth adding some to a bucket of water and mopping the floors – luckily vinegar is a great cleaning agent so you’ll be killing two birds with one stone. Undiluted vinegar is also very effective at killing ants, and watered down it will still drive them away.

Coffee is another great deterrent: sprinkle coffee grounds near entryways as ants hate to walk over the texture of them and will avoid them. They also hate the scent of mint, so you could plant mint plants around your garden or, if you want an indoor-only option, pour some peppermint oil onto a cloth or cotton pad and place them around a room, or add the oil to a spray bottle and spritz the room.

Most importantly, ensure you never leave food out as it can attract ants, particularly sugary foods. Remove the food and wipe down any surfaces it touched so ants aren’t drawn to the smell.

If you’ve embraced your green finger with some indoor foliage, inspect your houseplants for any nesting ants. If you find any, add coffee grounds or citrus peel to the top of the soil to repel them.

Surprisingly, chalk is a seemingly inoffensive material that ants can’t abide. If you know where ants are entering your home, draw a chalk line in front of it. There are varying theories as to why ants won’t cross a chalk line: some believe ants don’t like the chalk’s calcium carbonate while others think the line interrupts their scent trails.

Speaking of scents, water is another delicious smell to ants. If you have a compost heap, make sure it is as far as possible from your home as it can attract ants. If they are in the compost heap and far from your home, they can play a vital role in our ecosystem so distance is the best solution. Within the home, ensure that you empty your bin regularly as ants will be drawn to a bin full of food as well as any water that gathers at the end.