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| Ants give me the heebie jeebies. We never had problems with ants inside until last year. I called Barry at work in a panic. “WE HAVE ANTS! COME HOME NOW!” Of course, he didn’t. We used a recipe for homemade Terro that we found on the internet. My mom uses Terro for ants, so I was familiar with it.My Annie was still a babe in arms so we didn’t worry about the Borax then. Now she is running around everywhere so we have to be more careful. We don’t want chemicals in our home, so we made another concoction from stuff we had here to get rid of the little devils. Well…..it didn’t work. Everything I tried was a dud. The ants were still here – I still had the heebie jeebies, so I wanted to go back to the Terro. To make your own, you need borax, sugar, and water. That’s it. |
 Combine 1 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of Borax, and ½ cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for three minutes. Let it cool completely. It will thicken as it cools. |
 Before you put this mixture down, you need to clean the ant area with something. I used white vinegar because I use it to clean my entire house. It’s safe – it’s effective – it makes me want pickles. You need to clean it because ant’s leave a trail. The trail says “Hey! Come over to this lady’s house! She’s a great cook and her kid is messy!” |
 Take this cooled mixture and put it into jar lids – short so that the ants can crawl over the side. It also needs to be in a lid so it’s portable. Place the lid where you know the ants are. They will eat the stuff, take it back to the queen and they’ll die. It won’t be instantly, it might take a day or two. This isn’t a microwaved ant killing method. |
 Borax is NOT child or pet friendly. The FDA says Borax is safe., unless ingested in LARGE amounts. So, please wash your pan with hot water and soap – and don’t serve Borax for dinner. But, I know this method works…..and ants give me the heebie jeebies – did I tell you that? So, I put the mixture down when I knew we were going to be gone all day with Dottie. Then we came home and put Annie to bed and kept the dog upstairs. The next day I pulled it up and then put it down again during her nap (Dottie upstairs) taking it up when she was awake. That night, we put it down again. Presto! It worked! Don’t mess with me, ants. |
| This post is linked at Frugal Days Sustainable Ways at Frugally Sustainable and at Works for Me Wednesday on We Are That Family. |
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About Stacy
Hi, I'm Stacy! Welcome to Stacy Makes Cents! I'm a naturally-minded, frugal living mama, who likes to blog about living debt free in everyday life. Delicious (and healthy) recipes, money tips, and frugal living posts abound here! Enjoy your stay. Romans 13:8 
Just mixed up a batch. And put a time-lapse camera on it. I’ll let you know how it goes and send you the link to the time-lapse video once edited.
I have a hunch Australian ants don’t care about your recipe.
Those Australian ants must be ornery. Ha!
Scott, did you do this? I have two types of ants, one that I would expect to go for this bait, another that probably wont. The ones that won’t are odd, they invade my house to eat tissues. I can’t work that one out.
I recently tried a bait for flies, it didn’t work on the regular house flies that drive me mad, but all the little ones that come in to hang around the fruit bowl went for it. It was two tablespoons of sugar in a jar, half fill it with vinegar and top it up with water, then cover the top with a piece of paper held on with a rubber band and poke a hole in it about the right size for the flies.
I had to share that this also works for roaches… Those irritating German roaches we get in Texas that even the exterminators say are impossible to get rid of once someone accidentally gets an egg stuck to a shoe or something and brings them into your house.
Ants annoy me, but roaches creep me out. I used your recipe to get rid of some sugar ants, and found the side benefit that it got rid of the roaches too. Unfortunately, I live in Texas and they just come back anyway. BUT I’ve figured out if I put out the bait every month we are roach free.
So much cheaper than the exterminator and no odd chemicals in the house with 3 kids. Horray!!
Wow, Donna! That’s GREAT! Thanks for letting me know!
I’m sooooo glad to know it works on roaches! I don’t know what kind we have, but they are big. We just moved in and have seen them a handful of times. Time for them to leave! Thanks for posting the recipe, Stacy!
You’re welcome!!
Just whipped some up…uuuuhhhhhh
Hope it works great!
ok im gonna try this…i HATE ants and its out of controll here….ALSO, Dottie is a great name <3
OK I am wanting to kill fire ants outside where I feed squirrels and birds ..solo since they don’t usually eat that stuff will it be safe to put out ? Or maybe just at night I guess. Thank you I will try out and let you know ! Sounds good!
Hmmmm, I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never put it outside before.
Be very careful to not get it on the stove, it pitted my black glass surface:( Sure hope it gets rid of the ants. Thanks for the recipe.
Boooooooooo!!!
Hope it works for you too.
I know! But it’s a good lesson to me and hope it warns others to be more careful than I was. Who would have believed burnt sugar could do that? On the brighter side, I think it’s working already!!! I filled yogurt lids and laid them at different places on top of my cupboards. This morning I found some of the lids had ants and other lids didn’t. I moved the other lids next to the ones that had ants in them. Will let you know next week with, hopefully, a good report. Your site is wonderful.
Hooray! Keep me posted.
I’m so happy to report that it worked! And as a side benefit, I instead of creeped out I’m now intrigued by the little pests. I spent way too much time watching them crawl from one place to the “feast” then back again to share it with their nest-mates. The little guys came in at the point where the moulding meets the ceiling. I taped a little clear plastic cup to the places they would enter with white duct tape. I “painted” the tape with the mixture and they were easy to see and fun to watch them as I sat at this computer. After three days there weren’t any on top of the cupboards, but I do see one or two after it rains on the white tape with the killer-paste, that I will leave on the moulding for awhile.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you shared this great safe ant killer. Thanks Stacy!
I’m so glad it worked for you!
We recently had an ant invasion after a heavy rain (seems to always happen that way), so I sprinkled some plain borax along the baseboards, following their trail. Within a day, they were totally gone. The bug man came a week later and I told him we had had a recent ant problem. When I told him I’d put down borax, he said he uses boric acid (borax) pellets all around the outside of the house and to just keep doing what I was doing if I ever see them inside. I thought it was funny that our pest control company uses borax, too, but if it works, it works!
That sounds like how we use diatomaceous earth!
Our contractor told us to put borax down inside the walls and behind our new cabinets when we had our kitchen remodeled, to keep ants, roaches and mice away. His words were that ‘borax keeps away anything with legs!’ He says they always sprinkle it down in the walls of new houses. I thought that was a great tip, if you ever do any remodeling! The only thing ‘with legs’ we’ve seen since then were some ants, but they were right at the front door…far from the kitchen.
Would this work on pillbugs? I have an infestation of pillbugs in my bathroom. The oddest place, I know. Also would borax hurt plants if you sprinkled it outside to kill bugs? Just wondering
I’m not sure what pillbugs are, but you might want to try diatomaceous earth. Get the food grade type. I bought mine from Amazon.
Found this on interest, going to try it. Sounds like a win win!
Oops interest. Not interest.
OK guess auto correct wins. Lol.
LOL Been there. Been there.
I hope it works great for you!
I’m not sure if there are any borax item sold in my country so I want to ask, if normal laundry detergent works on this?
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No….maybe look for diatomaceous earth.
I think this is even worse, not even heard of this and I think it wouldn’t appear on the market. Thanks anyway, just want to know if normal laundry detergent work, if can’t, maybe I go try find for borax.
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