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While nobody expects for you to take a crash course in bug biology, it's helpful to understand a few facts about ants, and insects in general. Most insects require a readily available source of moisture to survive. That's one reason your kitchen, bathroom, laundry area or any other room supplied with incoming moisture becomes a popular watering hole for ants. Those are your typical ant combat zones, and where you'll want to concentrate your efforts.
Ants have two basic and distinctively different diet types. Protein feeders seek fats such as meat, grease and oils, while the other type consumes only sugars. If you have been trying to kill ants with baits, this could be why some of your early battles have been less than stellar. You may have been using the wrong kind of bait. The solution to that is simple. If one doesn't work, just try the other.
As tempting as it is, do not attempt to fight ants by spraying them with anything, squashing them or otherwise bothering them directly. The ants you see traveling in orderly lines, or trails, are foragers. Their only job is to find food and bring it back to the nest to feed the entire colony, including the queen. The colony is solely dependent upon them for its food. You're going to capitalize on that by giving them some very sneaky surprises to take back to the colony. Your arsenal is in your cabinets. -
Begin with a simple experiment to identify your quarry as grease or sugar ants. Prepare two test baits, each in a disposable plastic bottle cap. Put a tiny meat or fat scrap in one, and a sweet sugary liquid such as honey or cola in the other. Set them side by side in a spot where you've seen ants actively trailing. If they're busily scurrying to and fro when your test baits are ready, all the better. Just set them right in the way of the encroaching ants. They'll quickly decide which appeals to them. Observe the ants to see which bait they choose, and take your cue from that.
Or try a comprehensive approach by appealing to all tastes. Mix 3 packages of dry yeast with 2 tbsp. dry cornmeal and 1 tbsp. baking power. Form a paste by adding 3 tsp. honey or molasses and 3 tsp. bacon grease, which will attract both types of ants. Put spoonfuls of the bait in plastic jar lids and set them wherever you've seen trails of ants entering the room. The yeast and baking soda combine and react with gastric juices when consumed, giving ants a killer case of bloating gas.
Dry grits are highly effective ant killers because ants will consume them, not knowing that they can't digest or pass them. The grits expand when eaten and produce death by bellyache. Mix them with a little sugar or a tiny dot of honey for sweets-loving ants, or mix dry grits with a dot of bacon grease or lard for protein-feeding ants. If you're not concerned about containing the bait, you can simply scatter some dry grits wherever you've seen ants. Sometimes just pouring some grits into a bottle cap with no other incentive mixed in works fine, too.
Dry cream of wheat works in much the same way by expanding when eaten, killing the ants. It has a stronger odor than grits do, so you really don't need to mix it with anything to create a tempting and effective ant bait. Either sprinkle it around or put a little into some bottle caps to offer your unsuspecting uninvited guests.
You should see a noticeable reduction in the number of ants within 72 hours once they begin to actively carry food from any of these bait stations. It may take 2-4 weeks for your home to be completely rid of the infestation, depending upon how large the colony is. - Many lovers of home remedies claim great success in repelling ants with applications of substances that the ants simply do not like right onto the ant trails. These include talcum powder, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, ground cinnamon, chili powder, cream of tartar, used coffee grounds, vinegar, mint, soap-and-water mixture, cucumber or citrus peels and powdered chalk or cleanser.
