How to Get Rid of Ants
Follow the ant trail to where they get in, wipe out the scent, seal the gaps, and use bait the ants carry back to kill the colony.
The first ant you see is a scout. Its job is to find food and leave a pheromone trail back to the colony so the rest can follow. If you see one ant, more are coming. We learned this the hard way when our kitchen counter turned into a highway overnight.
You can deal with the common kitchen ants yourself, and the FAQs below say when to call a professional instead. The process is straightforward once you understand ant behavior. They are not random. They follow chemical trails to food sources. Remove the food, destroy the trail, and seal where they enter. The colony eventually gives up on your home.
For persistent infestations, bait traps finish the job by reaching the queens, which is the one thing cleaning and sealing cannot do. Note the plural. Some of the ants that move into houses run colonies with more than one queen, so the aim is to keep bait available until the traffic stops rather than to score a single kill.
White vinegar and water (equal parts in a spray bottle). Dish soap. Caulk or weatherstripping for sealing entry points. Optional but recommended for persistent problems: commercial ant bait stations (the kind with borax-based bait the ants carry back to the colony, not spray insecticide).
Identify the ant trail and entry point
Watch where the ants are going. They follow pheromone trails in nearly single-file lines between their entry point and the food source. Follow the line in both directions. One end leads to food (often crumbs, pet food, sticky residue, or trash). The other end leads to where they enter your home. Common entry points are cracks in walls, gaps around window frames, spaces under doors, openings around pipes or wires that penetrate walls, and gaps in the foundation. Mark the entry point so you can seal it later.
Destroy the pheromone trail with vinegar
Mix equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spray the entire visible ant trail generously, from food source to entry point. Then wipe the trail thoroughly with a cloth. The wiping is what removes the pheromone trail, and the vinegar smell masks whatever traces are left behind. Plain soapy water does the same job, so do not put this off for want of vinegar. UC IPM's instruction is to clean up invading ants with a sponge and soapy water as soon as they come in. Thorough cleaning at the entry points is what does the work. Without the trail, other ants from the colony cannot find the route. They will wander randomly near the entry point for a while, but without the chemical GPS, they cannot efficiently reach food. Repeat this every time you see a new trail forming. The colony will send new scouts, but destroying each trail discourages them.
Eliminate the food source completely
Whatever the ants were targeting must be removed or sealed. Store sugar, honey, syrup, and cereal in airtight containers. Clean up crumbs immediately after eating. Wipe counters with soapy water (soap destroys pheromone traces too). Take out trash daily. Rinse recyclables before putting them in the bin. Fix any dripping faucets (ants need water too, especially in dry weather). Pay special attention to hidden food sources like grease drips behind the stove, sticky residue under the toaster, or fruit left in open bowls.
Heads up: A pet food bowl left out overnight is a standing invitation, and it is easy to forget because it does not look like food waste. Pick up food bowls when your pet is done eating. If you must leave food out, place the bowl inside a slightly larger dish filled with water. The water moat blocks ants from reaching the food.
Seal the entry points
Use silicone caulk to seal any cracks, gaps, or holes where ants are entering. Caulk is permanent and works for cracks in walls, gaps around window frames, and openings around pipes. For door gaps, add or replace weatherstripping along the bottom. For a temporary fix while you get materials, cover the gap with duct tape. Check your entire kitchen and bathroom perimeter for potential entry points, not just the one you identified. Ants will find alternative routes if their primary entry is blocked but others remain.
Deploy bait stations for persistent colonies
If sealing and cleaning have not made a clear difference after a week or so, the colony may be large or nearby. Use commercial liquid ant bait stations, such as Terro's. Place them near the entry points and along known trail paths. Bait traps work by attracting ants with a sweet liquid that contains borax. The ants eat it and carry it back to the colony, where they share it through a process called trophallaxis. The borax slowly kills the ants that consumed it, and because it moves mouth to mouth it reaches the larvae and the queens rather than only the foragers you can see. Be patient with it. UC IPM says control with baits is not immediate and may take several weeks or more to be complete, and that it can take 5 to 10 days just to see fewer ants. You will see more ants at first as they swarm the bait. That is a good sign. It means they are taking it back to the colony.
Prevent future infestations
Once the current problem is resolved, maintain the conditions that made your home unattractive. Store all food (including pet food) in sealed containers. Clean up spills and crumbs promptly. Take trash out daily. Inspect your home's exterior every few months for new cracks or gaps, especially after weather changes. Keep vegetation trimmed back from your exterior walls (ants use plants as bridges). What is not worth your money is the perimeter spray sold for exactly this. UC IPM is blunt about it. Spraying around the foundation will not provide permanent control, because it kills only foraging ants without killing the colony and the queens. That is the same reason this guide gives for not spraying the ants on your counter, and it applies just as much outside as in.
Once you eliminate the food source, destroy the trails, and seal entry points, the numbers fall. With bait, UC IPM says it can take 5 to 10 days just to see fewer ants and several weeks or more to finish the job. The ants do not disappear instantly because the colony still sends scouts to check, but with no food reward and no trail to follow, new scouts find nothing and report back to the colony. Eventually they stop coming. If ants are still streaming in after a month of consistent effort, or you spot large ants and sawdust near wood, the FAQs below cover when to call a professional. If cockroaches are also making an appearance, our guide on how to get rid of roaches walks through identification, baiting, and sealing entry points step by step.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
Spraying kills the ants you can see but does nothing to the colony. The queen is safe in the nest, continuously producing more workers. With some species, such as Pharaoh ants, a repellent spray can also make the colony split into several new nests (called budding), which spreads the problem. Bait works because ants carry it back and share it, which reaches the queen. Think of it as the difference between trimming weeds (spray) and pulling the root (bait).
Common small ants (sugar ants, odorous house ants, pavement ants) are harmless. They do not bite painfully or damage structures, and in a home they are a nuisance. Carpenter ants are the exception. They are large (half an inch or more), often black, and chew tunnels into wood for nesting. If you see large ants with sawdust piles near wooden structures, get professional help to assess structural damage.
They work as temporary deterrents, not solutions. Ants avoid strong scents like cinnamon, peppermint, and citrus. Sprinkling these near entry points can redirect ants temporarily. But they do not kill the colony or permanently stop entry. The ants will simply find a different path. Use these as supplementary barriers while implementing the real solutions (sealing, cleaning, and baiting).
Ant colonies are perennial. They survive winter in dormancy and become active again as the weather warms. Spring warmth plus spring rain (which floods underground nests) drives ants to seek new food sources and higher ground. If your home had ants last year, they will likely try the same entry points again. Seal those gaps in late winter, before the ants become active.
Give bait longer than feels reasonable before deciding it has failed, because several weeks is normal rather than a sign that something has gone wrong. Call a professional if you are still seeing steady traffic after about a month of consistent bait, sealing, and cleaning. Also call if you suspect carpenter ants (large ants near wood, sawdust piles), if you find ants in electrical outlets or junction boxes (they can cause short circuits), if the infestation is in a wall void you cannot access, or if you are dealing with fire ants (painful sting, mound-building species common in southern states).
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How to Get Rid of Ants
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