There are endless sprays and poisons you can use to get rid of ants. However, you won’t have to look any further than your morning cup of coffee if you’d like a repellent that doesn’t contain any harmful chemicals. By using coffee grounds ants will stay away and kids and pets will stay safe.
Pest Ants
Even though ants are generally considered beneficial garden insects they can sometimes be pests particularly when they decide to move into your home or start taking regular missions inside of it in search of food.
Some species such as carpenter arts eat wood and can cause serious damage to your home and property. Others may just be more annoying and create unattractive ant hills in-between cracks on your concrete or take up residence in your potted plants or garden.
The Truth About Coffee Grounds And Ants
Like many other backyard pests, ants have an aversion to used grounds. Do coffee grounds kill ants? Well, despite what you may have heard they won’t actually harm the ants in any way but they will help to repel them.
While we don’t know exactly why this is (some say the high nitrogen content in the grounds burns their feet) we do know they will stay away from them. The grounds are also thought to cover up the scent trails that ants use to navigate as well.
If you would like to kill the ants you can in fact use your boiling hot pot of coffee or water to do so. Simply pour either on top of the anthill where your resident ants are living. This will kill a large number of the ants on contact but also cause the extensive tunnel system underground to collapse as well.
While boiling hot coffee and water don’t contain any harmful chemicals, their extreme heat can harm surrounding plants and grass. So you’ll only want to use them for anthills that aren’t in your lawn or garden.
How To Deter Ants From The Garden
For keeping ants out of general areas such as your garden all you’ll need to do is sprinkle your used grounds in and around it. Using coffee grounds in the garden has extra benefits as well such as increasing the quality of your soil and adding nitrogen for your plants and flowers.
If you have a specific plant that you want to keep the ants away from, you can encircle it with a ring of grounds. Or you may want to do this for a larger group of plants. Normally when they reach the coffee grounds ants will turn around, they won’t cross over them.
Getting Ants To Move Out With Grounds
You can use your grounds to get ants to abandon their homes as well by creating rings of grounds around any ant hills you have on your property. Dumping the grounds right on top of it and into the hole can help too. If the ants create a new entrance you’ll want to repeat the process with the new anthill.
Ants may sometimes move the grounds out of the way, in order to make a path through. So you may need to keep applying them periodically to make sure the rings of coffee stay solid. With a bit of patience, the ants may eventually leave their home and find somewhere new to live.
Keeping Ants Out Of Your House With Coffee
You can also use coffee grounds to keep ants out of your home. To do so you’ll want to place a line of grounds, or several, to block the paths which ants use to get into your home. You may want to have a look first to see where they are coming in from.
Window sills, cracks, and around vents are areas ants often use to get in and could be potential spots for placing lines of grounds. Just make sure to check the lines every few days and reapply fresh grounds if the ants have moved them out of the way.
Other Ant Natural Deterrents
Coffee grounds repel ants but they aren’t the only natural option. There are a few other totally natural deterrents you can use and you may even have them in your home already. For example, cayenne pepper and cinnamon powder both are known to keep ants away.
Ground-up lemon or orange peels can work too. Simply apply them in the same manner as you would coffee grounds. You can use any of these on their own, along with your grounds, or together in any combination to keep ants away.
Using coffee grounds for ants may lack the lethal efficiency of your typical bug spray, and take some patience. However, you’ll be rewarded by the fact that this all-natural option, is safe, free, and will keep ants away without harming them.
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