Yes -- Borax got rid of the ants!
Here's how to use Borax to get rid of ants when those little tiny ones get into your home! It's so easy, and so much more affordable in the long run than buying commercial ant baits.
Note: This post is a blast from the pretty far past. Originally published in 2013, using Borax to kill ants is still relevant today -- because these darn ants, they are back every year.
When I ran a Borax giveaway a while back, several of you asked if using Borax really did get rid of the ants. Survey says: Yes! I haven't seen one in my kitchen since putting out this homemade ant-killing Borax recipe a couple of times. It works at least as well as, if not better than, the little ant bait things -- and is so much more affordable in the long run than investing in baits over and over again.
It's easy to use Borax to get rid of ants, and picking up Borax is a better long term investment, since you can also use it for other purposes.
Use Borax to get rid of ants
Is it just me, or do you see a new annoying batch of tiny ants in your house every spring, too? I always get a bunch of little ants coming into my kitchen under one of the cabinets that backs up against an outside wall. I originally saw a suggestion online to sprinkle a line of Borax and sugar along where the ants are coming in, but didn’t want to leave that out because of our cats.
So instead, I used this effective ant-killing Borax recipe from The Happy Housewife:
- Mix ½ C sugar, 1 ½ tablespoon Borax, and 1.5 C warm water.
- Soak some cotton balls in the mixture, and put them out near the mess of ants.
- The sugar attracts the ants, and they'll take the Borax with it back to their home.
- Eating the Borax kills the ants!
If you have small children or pets, be sure to keep them away from Borax -- and always wash your hands after using.
Note: Thanks to several commenters who add that: If your ants don't seem to be attracted to sugar, try mixing in some peanut butter instead. They may have a savory tooth rather than a sweet tooth! Just like people, insects are all different... 🙂
Some ants do love sugar...
BOY do these particular ants like this mixture. In the initial Boraxian experiment, I locked the cats in the bedroom for a few hours and set several soaked cotton balls in a line along the edge of the cabinet where the ants were coming in. I let the ants go to town, picked up the cotton balls, wiped up the floor, then let the cats out. Then, I repeated the experiment for a second round of about an hour later in the evening (seeing many fewer ants on this second go-round). By morning? No new ants in sight.
Tip: Try mixing in peanut butter for a more savory ant-attracting formula, if your batch of ants doesn't seem to care for the sugar.
The Borax Effect lasts for some time. When the ants inevitably return, though, it's super easy to whip up another little batch.
Have you tried Borax to get rid of ants in your home? Comment here and let us know how it worked for you!
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I used a slightly modified version of the Borax/Sugar/water fomula: since most anything sweet will do as the vehicle for the borax - I used some leftover red sweet & sour? sauce from our favorite chinese restaurant, then mixed about 1/3 of that volume with borax (20 Mule Team). It didn't take the ants but maybe 15 - 20 minutes and they had a congregation that would make any preacher proud! I am waiting to see how long it will take to decrease their numbers. Thanks for the post - I absolutely HATE ants!
This is basically what Terro liquid ant bait is but way cheaper. I would forget about the cotton balks (opt o add let towel and they would stick to the counter so I started using soda caps of just the liquid and the ants went to town. I could refill the caps or throw them out when the liquid solidified.
Forgive me if this has already been asked and answered but I'm in the middle of an ant assault and need to do something quickly. HOW do the ants CARRY the borax back to their nests if it's been dissolved in warm water with the sugar? Can I just put out a small dish with dry borax and sugar?
Not about Borax but I finally found my solution to our horrific mass ant invasion that happens all year especially after a rainfall. I live in an area of the Northwest that is notorious for them and they get into every room of the house even the beds. Doesn't kill them (which sends a message out from the Queen for reinforcements) but emptied a wall under my window that was blackened with Ants in 10 minutes. Later I saw a couple come back so I repeated the process and now they are all just gone. I left a spray under the window for a few days after I shut off the humidifier just in case. By the way when you remove ants from your property Crows will leave with them. The solution was to add a little bit of essential Peppermint (Mentha Peperita) oil to a humidifier. The smell was very light and pleasant for me but Ants absolutely cannot tolerate the scent of spearmint.
Borax and icing sugar work very well indeed. The areaoutside my kitchen door was covered in anthills. I mixed the borax and icing sugar together and sprinkled the dry powder around the holes in the middle of the mounds and within a week or so there were no more mounds and no more ants !!!!
This was amazing. Before we left for holidays on Monday I cleaned up the food in our daughter's room and put out some dollar store traps, hoping that the ants would be gone when we came home Friday night. Nope! They simply moved to the bathroom. It was disgusting. Hundreds of ants. I put out the soaked cotton pads ( I couldn't find cotton balls) at 11 at night. By morning the ants were practically gone. Only a few stragglers left wandering around the entry point. I only used half of the solution and I put out a ton of pads. Thank you!!!!
This worked amazingly well! I have fought ghost ants for over a year. Terro stopped working, and expensive gel wouldn’t work. I soaked the areas they were in with Raid. Once it dried they came right back. This recipe literally killed them in under 24 hours! Our house has been ghost ant free for over a week! Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you Thank you Thank you for posting this
We were at witts end with ants until i read your post
overnight the ants disappeared with such a simple solution
You are appreciated beyond words
Thank you
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For fire ants, wasps and ground hornets outside. Use dishwashing liquid soap and warm water. Wipes them out instantly. Larger mounds need larger loads. For wasps and hornets get them at night when they are all in the nests...
After I began seeing ants invading my kitchen and tried several commercial products without success I became desperate and began looking online for a solution. I tried vinegar and a few other suggestions, one being cinnamon oil, which I mixed in a spray bottle and sprayed it in every crack, again with no success, I tried borax and sugar water. I put cotton balls along the edges of my counters. The ants swarmed these and I thought to myself I sure hoped it was effective because I'd otherwise have a bigger ant problem. By the morning I saw a ton of dead ants and to my surprise no new ones. I cleaned the counters and was so excited to not have any new infestation quickly . The following Spring when ants tried to return I again used the same recipe and had equally exciting results. RThis is my go to solution and the best alternative by far!!!