Ants are a yearly nuisance for anyone. To get rid of ants, you must first understand when and why they come around. Ants begin their arrival in middle to late spring when the weather starts to warm up. You need to be prepared for them. Removing the items that attract ants will safeguard your home for the future, and preparedness is key.
- Remove any sweets or foods that are left out in the open.
- Make sure to clean up after yourself, especially dishes. Once again, any food left out is a major attractor.
- Promptly remove trash. Letting trash build up only adds to your problem.
- Seal any areas that ants could use to enter your home. Using silicone seal around any windows and doors is your best bet.
- Eliminate any standing water from flower beds, hoses, or downspouts. Ants need water too.
Once you have found and fixed any items that could allow ants into your home or give them a reason to enter, the next step is eliminating the problem. Depending on your approach, there are a few different ways to squelch the ants, and you can use either chemical or natural solutions. Keep in mind that there are different solutions for indoor and outdoor ant control. Let's start with the chemical solutions: 
- Inside your home, you can place ant bait traps. These are best under sinks and by trash cans.
- For inside your home, there is the basic ant spray. This kills on contact and leaves a residue to kill and repel any ants for a specified amount of time, generally 3 months.
- Outside your home, there are concentrate liquids that you can mix and spray around window seals and door jambs.
- Dusts that are created to repel insects can also help with ants. Keep in mind that dust products are more for planter beds and vegetable gardens.
These products can be obtained at any major home retailer. Now for the natural solutions:
- You must locate any ant hills or areas that you know ants are living in. Once this is done, take boiling water, 2-3 gallons, and pour it onto the ants.
- Cayenne pepper can be sprinkled around the ants' home and by any place that ants can enter your home.
- Tree Tanglefoot Pest Barrier is a product that can be placed around the trunks of plants and trees, removing another food source.
- Adding vinegar to the water that you use to clean your home helps deter ants.
- Sprinkling cinnamon around your home has been known to work.
- D.E., or diatomaceous earth, if sprinkled in the path of ants, will cause them to dehydrate.
Any of these methods may only work for a small amount of time. Keep in mind that ants are very resilient. Find which work for you and use them as needed and your ant problem should be over.
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