Ants can be quite a nuisance in a kitchen. These tiny six-legged creatures can get into any food you leave and even crawl into unusual places like water kettles or your kitchen faucet. It can be troublesome to see rows of ants moving across your countertops, up your walls, or even to witness them scattering about the kitchen floor.
There are a few reasons you’ll need to know how to get rid of ants in the kitchen. To start, ants can contaminate foods because they are known to spread disease organisms. In addition, they can give your kitchen a dirty and unhygienic appearance, which will undoubtedly put off guests who might be coming over for dinner.
It’s important to take drastic measures when you notice an ant infestation in your kitchen. Ant colonies can quickly multiply and the infestation will only keep getting worse.
This guide will show you how to get rid of ants in the kitchen and provide some great tips for repelling ants that will keep them from returning.
Why Are Ants Suddenly Infesting My Kitchen?
Ants could be suddenly infesting your kitchen for various reasons. You may not have dealt with this issue before because it could be a new colony recently established close to your home. Here are some of the most typical reasons for ant infestations to target your kitchen.
Food Sources
Ants will eat just about any type of food. They are especially attracted by sweet food and will quickly form ant trails to pet food bowls, and your kitchen countertops where bits of food are most likely to be found.
Water Source
The kitchen sink is a good water source for ants. You are likely to find worker ants inside your kitchen sink and they might even climb up into the faucet, water bottles, or a kettle.
How Do Ants Get Into My Kitchen
Ants may be accessing your kitchen by crawling underneath the door, through tiny gaps in the kitchen window frame, or by climbing through wall gaps. Some ants may get in through your electric outlets. Small ant species can also form nests inside potted houseplants and crawl through the drainage holes to find food and water inside the kitchen.
How to Get Rid of Ants in the Kitchen
There are several different ways to get rid of ants in the kitchen. You can try natural remedies to clear them away without using extreme pesticides or call pest control to get your home and garden sprayed. Here are some steps and strategies for clearing away ants.
Identify the Ant Species
The first step to getting rid of ants in the kitchen is identifying the ant species you are dealing with. Small black ants like pharaoh ants, odorous house ants, pavement ants, and Argentine ants are the most common culprits. These ants can get into your kitchen because they are small enough to get through even the tightest cracks.
Sugar ants are also commonly spotted inside kitchens. They are larger and have a light brown or reddish hue. These prefer to form nests outside and will come indoors to find food sources.
Finding the Source
After identifying the ant species, the next step is discovering their colony. This can be tricky since ants can form colonies or nests inside your walls, underneath your kitchen cabinets, inside houseplant pots, or the colony could be established outside.
It’s important to identify the main colony because this is where the queen is located. Queen ants can lay up to 800 eggs per day which means your ant infestation will continue until you locate and get rid of the nest.
To find the source, look for the following signs:
- Sawdust piles next to cabinets
- Gravely piles next to concrete cracks
- Earth piles around potted houseplants
- Scattered Debris
If you have difficulty locating the nest, try putting out some bait. Watch for ant trails and track them until you find the nest.
Remedies for Repelling and Clear Out Ants in the Kitchen
After locating the ant colony, don’t seal up the nest. The ants will dig a new entryway and continue targeting your kitchen looking for food. To destroy the ant colony, you can try the following remedies.
Set Out Bait Traps
Consider setting out bait traps to kill the colony. It’s best to set these traps where the ants have been bothersome inside the kitchen.
Bait traps contain insecticides and ants will carry the bait to their nest and the queen or other workers will feed on the poisoned bait, which can help kill the colony. Be careful when setting out bait traps – the bait does contain hazardous chemicals and can be harmful to pets or small children.
Use Borax
Borax, or sodium tetraborate, contains the element boron, which can be poisonous to some ant species. It is important to realize that ants won’t simply eat borax; you can create your own ant bait by mixing borax with food.
To create a mixture, blend half a teaspoon of borax with eight teaspoons of sugar and one cup of warm water. Mix well until the sugar and borax dissolve. Then soak cotton balls in the mixture and place the cotton balls where ants are usually found.
Because borax can be toxic to children and pets, you should be careful not to place the cotton balls where they are easy to access.
Boiling Water
Pouring boiling water down the ant hill or ant nest can be a good method to kill the colony. Simply boil some water and pour it into the hole or ant hill. For this method, you might need a lot of boiling water because ant colonies can extend surprisingly deep into the ground.
Call a Professional
The most effective way to kill ants is by calling pest control. By spray-treating your garden and home, the colony will be destroyed. With pest control companies, your home and garden can stay pest-free for up to six months. Additionally, the pesticides will also get rid of other pests like termites, spiders, and scorpions.
How to Keep Ants From Returning
Getting rid of an ant infestation can be difficult and you don’t want these pests to return any time soon. Here are some great preventative measures to keep your kitchen ant-free so you won’t have to deal with ant issues again.
Clean the Kitchen
Since ants are attracted by food, the best repelling method is by keeping your kitchen clean. Try doing the dishes before bed and wipe off any food residue from your countertops.
While cleaning, use products like lemon juice or vinegar that have a strong smell – these cleaners will destroy the pheromone trails on kitchen surfaces so the ants won’t be able to find their way back to your kitchen.
Eliminate Water Sources
Eliminating water sources will also keep ants out of your kitchen. Properly close off all taps and don’t let water sit in the kitchen sink, cups, or water bottles. Repair water leaks and unclog the kitchen sink so there will be no stagnant or dripping water to be found.
Use Lots of Vinegar and Lemon Juice
White vinegar and lemon juice are natural ant repellants because ants dislike these scents. You can whip up some vinegar and lemon juice in a spray bottle and spray along creases, over your floor, on the kitchen countertop, or around the baseboard. This will help mask the scent of food and eliminate some scent trails.
Other Natural Ant Repellants
Black pepper, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and certain essential oils can also naturally repel ants. Mix some pepper and cinnamon and sprinkle the mixture around your home. Essential oils can also be used inside the kitchen to freshen up your spaces and to repel ants so they won’t infest these spaces again.
Pay Attention to Pet Food Placements
Ants regularly infest pet food bowls. It’s best to place dog or cat food outside the house or invest in pet feeders that can mask the scent of these foods.
Final Thoughts
Ants will eventually make their way into any kitchen and learning how to get rid of ants in the kitchen can help you control these types of infestations before they get out of hand. We hope you enjoyed our guide and that our natural remedies will help you quickly rid your kitchen of this issue.
Once you experience an ant problem, keep your kitchen clean and use ant repellents to keep this problem from resurfacing.
Visit Cook Room Kitchen if you need other cooking and kitchen guides or are looking for some delicious recipes to try now that your kitchen is clean and ant-free again.
