How To Make A Simple DIY Repellent To Keep Ants Away Naturally

Ants are social animals, so if you see one walking across your kitchen floor, others may soon follow. If an ant finds water or food in your home, it will leave a pheromone trail back to its colony so that other ants can return to the same source. It's also likely that the ant you saw was following a previous ant's trail. That's why killing a single ant doesn't solve your ant problem. You need a good repellent to keep the rest of the colony away. You could buy a commercial pesticide, but many of them contain compounds that can have numerous negative health effects, especially on children. You may also have to worry about getting rid of ants without harming pets. There are many essential oils that you can use instead – extracts from natural plant material that don't contain synthetic chemicals. A very effective one is patchouli oil.

Patchouli oil has many uses that benefit human health, but it has the opposite effect on bacteria, fungi, and pests, including ants. Patchouli won't make ants feel less stressed, relieve their dry skin, or control their dandruff like the oil is touted to do for humans. But it'll kill them or, at the very least, drive them away. Patchouli oil has been found by one study published in the journal Acta Tropica to be 84% effective in killing three common species of ants when the oil was directly applied to them. The repellent effect was even stronger: 96% of ants avoided the side of a dish that had patchouli oil on it and went to the side that didn't. A study published in Neotropical Entomology found that 50% of ants died when patchouli oil was applied as a fumigant. Let's talk about how to use it effectively.

Patchouli oil can be an irritant or toxic if ingested or inhaled in significant amounts, so keep children and pets away from the oil, especially in its undiluted form. In general, essential oils are too strong to be undiluted, and even when the oil is diluted, you should wear gloves and eye protection when spraying, as the spray can irritate skin and eyes. To dilute your patchouli oil, simply mix 10-15 drops of patchouli oil per every 2 ounces of water in a spray bottle, cover it, and shake thoroughly. 

For a fumigant, use a diffuser to disperse the patchouli oil. Otherwise, spray your patchouli solution directly on any ants you see. If you have seen the path that the ants have taken, clean the trail thoroughly with a homemade vinegar cleaning solution, then spray along the path. Pheromone trails are hard to remove, especially if many ants have taken the same path, so you should spray the trail every day until you are sure your home is ant-free. Finally, spray around windows, doors, weather stripping, where utility lines enter the home, and any other easy way that ants might come into your house – and keep your home clean. You'll be rid of ants in no time. However, if your ant problem is still beyond control, please call for professional pest control services.