Is This Pantry Staple Combo The Secret To Eliminating Ants In Your Kitchen?

Maybe you're sweeping your kitchen floor at the end of the day. Perhaps you're cleaning your baseboards or wiping down your counters. Suddenly, you see it: a trail of tiny ants making a path through your kitchen. While you can kill the ants you see, it's much harder to get rid of the ones that stay hidden. If you aren't a fan of using chemical products to get rid of ants, all hope isn't lost. Kris Bagnara, the Director of Service at All U Need Pest Control, spoke exclusively with Chowhound about the steps you can take to get rid of ants in your kitchen once and for all — and it's not what you think.

When you search for natural ways to eliminate ants from your home, you'll likely stumble upon advice suggesting that you use cornstarch to kill them — but this doesn't actually work as a standalone solution the way some may think. Bagnara says that the best pantry-based method to get rid of ants in your home is to combine baking soda with sugar. "The sugar will act as a bait," he says, "drawing the ants in, and the baking soda creates gases in their digestive system that they can't expel. Another positive is that the worker ants will carry the powder back to their nest, spreading it to the rest of the colony." Bagnara says that patience is key when it comes to using this method to get rid of ants, as this is a much slower method than baits made with borax, or calling in the professionals.

If you find that you're out of baking soda, there are some other steps you can take to help make your home less attractive to ants. Kris Bagnara cautions that the popular solutions of coffee grounds, salt sprinkles, and cucumber peels provide no long-term benefits, but there are certainly other natural fixes. Like many animals, ants find their way around using their sense of smell. Bagnara says that strongly scented foods and seasonings, like vinegar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and neem oil, can all help deter ants. Cinnamon can be especially helpful when it comes to stopping ants from coming back (the spice can also work well to keep ants out of your garden). Bonus: these deterrents don't just work well in your kitchen. Using them when you're eating outdoors can help to deter ants from joining picnics and cookouts.

While using these items can help discourage ants from setting up camp in your kitchen, they're not end-all-be-all solutions. Bagnara says that it's essential that you use an ant trap or another ant elimination method alongside deterrents. While this one-two punch works well in many cases, you may need to troubleshoot. "There are several different species of ants," says Bagnara, "and there's not a one-size-fits-all DIY solution depending on your situation."