Wednesday, July 28, 2010

How to Get Rid of Ants

Last summer ants started trooping in our house and took over our phone (landline) and Sweetie's keyboard. Immediately after shaking them out of both gadgets they started to take over my laptop. I started panicking then since I was afraid that my laptop might become unusable like our phone and Sweetie's keyboard.

Spraying Baygon proved to be just a temporary relief and hazardous to my health (even the water based one would trigger my asthma), so we scouted for better remedies online. We had to find one that would keep the ants out permanently and a solution that would not trigger my asthma.

We immediately stopped using Baygon and read from online sources that placing coffee in corners would keep ants out. Apparently ants hate the smell. It worked a bit, but they still found ways to get in the house, plus shoving it into holes was messy.

We tried to look for a glue insecticide but it wasn't available locally. Then we started looking for the "ant chalk". It was Sweetie's Mom who found some for us at a market in Marikina. She got us about 10 boxes. After getting it we then drew around holes and ant paths and walls.

Our anti-ant superhero.

The effect was amazing. Ants were immediately paralyzed when they went near the chalk line. Some dove to their death from the wall. It was a weird sight. Eventually the ants just avoided our place.

The ant chalk is quite easy to find in wet markets (at PhP10 per pack of 2), but it's also available in SM Hypermarket/Supermarket now (branded though).

3 comments:

  1. hi mamasan!

    i wrote a piece on safer cleaners and there's a section on natural pest control:
    http://jemps918.multiply.com/journal/item/21

    you may also want to check out these other links as alternatives, coz we don't know what's exactly in that chalk! plus, i'm sure peppermint smells so much better :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. oops, here they are :)

    http://eartheasy.com/live_natpest_control.htm

    http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/natural-pest-controls.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. strange, this has also been happening to us the past few months even! the ants have been in and out of my laptop so sometimes I would just prefer to leave the laptop in the office until they're gone (due to colder temperature?).

    ReplyDelete