You don’t have to use cotton balls in the garden. Use waffles. Put them in containers with lids and pokes hole so the ants fit to get in. They take the waffle bits back to their mound and eventually feed them to the queen. Hopefully garden problem solved. I have cut ants that took all my watermelons this year. It was really bad.

Hi Vera,

There have been several of our readers who have found this works well on outside ants. Results vary depending on your climate and the type of ants. Give it a try, we would love to hear about your results. Warmly, Tracy

You can get a box of Borax a lot cheaper if you look around.

Aren’t ants just nasty little buggers? Hope this works for you Jasmine!

@Jojo – Yeah, one has to wonder about the alternate effects of these substances on us as humans. Going back a few years, we had a very effective rat poison around the farm which as sure to eliminate the critters from tearing holes in feed bags or getting into feed bins and cleaning them out. Then the government stepped in and banned the poison from retail sales as rat poison. It was later reinstated in a much lower dose as a rodenticide. Now, we have a “drug” which helps in thinning blood to lower the risk of heart blockage and other blood clotting medical problems. It is call Coumadin and is exactly the same strength with much less dosage than that old time rat poison. the main ingredient in Coumadin is Warfarin, the rat poison which was banned.

Check out this website: https://www.drugs.com/coumadin.html

It explains what Coumadin is in 7 short lines of script, then it goes on to explain some “Important Information” about Coumadin. That explanation will take you 5 or 6 minutes to read if you read all about the side effects of Coumadin on the human body.

So many times, it isn’t the dosage of a patent drug that will kill us, it is the SIDE EFFECTS!! Read and heed before taking any patent drug.

Sorry to derail your ant killer blog but I feel the concept is important enough to address it here.

Oh yeah Mary, ya gotta be from my age group to see the humor in that recipe breakdown!! I guess we were raised using terms like “common sense” and “don’t try to re-invent the wheel” as our guidelines for grammar.

To answer your question, yeah, you ARE ……………. “right as rain” on a Spring morning!! Ha!

Tracy, I have been reading all of the comments about this age old ant remedy from “back in the day” when most of us already knew of the “homebrew” to keep ants from our doorstep. It seems to me that, with all of the grammatical changes and techno-alterations to our basic language from usage of a “smart” phone [LOL, ROFLMAO] to acronyms like [ASAP, WTF, PDQ], so many people read things but they do NOT digest what they read. Way too many questions about the pets and the placement and the toxicity which lead me to believe that we have become so alien to our very complicated English language that we possibly do not know the meaning of many words we use daily. With all the acronyms and abbreviations and “cool” words we use today that probably had entirely different meanings originally, we seem to depend on terms like present tense of the verb form of the word “pet” (to stroke or groom with the hand), which is the same spelling as the the all inclusive noun for all of the animals we choose to keep in our homes as friends/companions/sometimes toys for the kids.

I had to laugh at your remark to Pat’s post which inferred that her ant “treatment” only works in Spring before it rains! I still smile as I type this. Tracy, I doubt very seriously that ants really know which season of the year it is or whether it will rain or not if they find something that tempts their palate! I’d bet a box of Borax that, if you put this mix down around your house tomorrow, it would probably kill ants.

Thanks for the chuckle anyway, at my age I have to glean my humor from some very obtuse areas!! 😉

This recipe looks the same as buying “Terro” Ant killer..
I called Terro and they said its 5% Borax, and the rest sugar water. I pay about 5.00 o $6. 00 for a small bottle.
I’ll be trying this instead of Terro. Hope it works the same, and hope my ants do not come back.

The Terro Compamy told me, what they sell is Not toxic to animals or children, but I would not take that advice.

The whole idea of killing Ants in your house is, The Ants take this food back to the Queen ant. When she dies
the rest of the ants die.
That said, ant go far into the earth, and there are many colonies.
The ants that come in my house , do not come for food, they where in my walk in pantry, there is nothing they want in there, and on the bathtubs in the corner. There is nothing there for them.. Ants can eat through your Grout to get in.

I have never had ants in 50 yrs, . Now that we build a new house a few years ago, it seems we built on a Ant Hill. We should have had the
property sprayed before the slab was put down..Wish I known that before we started to build.

There is also Carpenter Ants that are like Termite Ants, and this will not kill them.

I am SOOO glad to have read this today. We lost two trees over the weekend. At first I thought just due to storm damage, but upon looking at them, the bases where they broke off at were filled with ant colonies. Other than that the trees appeared to have been healthy and were putting out new leaves. Eventually they would have died out though due to all the damage not visible under the bark. Will definitely be stopping by the store on the way home to buy the supplies. And since Shelta mentioned the house, I will be making a perimeter around it first before treating the mounds in the yard and around any more trees. If anyone else has had success with treating their yards/trees, please let me know.

Hi Joli,

Thanks for sharing the great information from your exterminator, great to hear you have your ant issues under control! Thanks for following us, Tracy

Didn’t work for me. Although I didn’t know to use cotton balls. That’s what happened to me. they were coming in my kitchen window at the kitchen sink. When I set the bait, they went to the floor & in the cat food and made a trail out the back door, or maybe they were coming in. What I learned from the exterminator: If you spray or wipe them up with a wet paper towel, the little buggers send out pheromones and alert the colony. Everyone gets in a panic & comes out to find out what happened. Bait is good, because they carry it back to the colony & feed the babies, etc. Ants move their colony every 3 months. They love electricity. Not sure why. Had a mass of ants in an electrical outlet on the other side of my house. Exterminators left me little ant traps laced with their special gel. When ants show up I get the traps out. Have to keep the traps in a baggie so they won’t dry out. Only had to use them once. If I need more exterminator brings them to me, NC since I’m on the quarterly program.

Hi Haven,

That hasn’t been a problem for me. If you do have a second occurrence use the poison at the new spot and it should do the job! Hope this helps, Tracy

Hi WesTXGrl13,

I couldn’t resist putting a few captions on the photos, so glad you enjoyed them! Thanks so much for following us and commenting, Tracy

I was wondering if it will make it worse?
For example, if I put It in one corner of my kitchen will it make them come out stronger in another spot?

Hi Barbara,

You will be so happy to finally get rid of any ants in your house! Thanks for leaving your comment, we love our followers! Tracy

Hey Liz,

I had that happened once, I just put more poison out and they were all gone the next day. Thanks for giving it a try! Tracy

I got mine at Wal-Mart too!

Just bought this today 76 ounce of Borax at Walmart under $4.oo , Amazon Over $12.oo Plus shipping

Hi Shelly,

Yes, this could harm your cat or dog if they ingest it. I always lock my cats in the garage until all the ants are gone and them I am very careful about cleaning any residue left behind. Hope this helps, Tracy

Great tip Bev! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hi Elaine! Thanks so much for reading our blog. You don’t know how much that means to us! So here is a link of what Borax is so that you might be able to find some locally. https://www.amazon.com/Borax-Mule-Team-Detergent-Booster/dp/B000VCFAXO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1431439093&sr=8-2&keywords=borax Hope that helps!