I am making an effort to control ant invasions by blocking their entrances. It works okay, but they often find a new way to an old trail. I’ve tried washing the path with household cleaners with limited (no?) success. Any suggestions for removing ants’ scent trails? (PS… moderators, if this is an…

Hmm, dishsoap has worked for me in the past, but I expect it varies with type of ant. Ants also don’t like cinnamon, so you can make cinnamon barriers, but that probably isn’t a good long term solution really.

I tried sprays like windex, 409, Ram cleaner etc. I was amazed in my old house to see ants following the same path I thought I sprayed clean the previous year! some of that trail was on the perimeter of a carpet. Still, their scents really persisted! :hushed: Yes, I’ve successfully used powder barr…

If you want to remove the pheromones from the trail rather than blocking the trail, it will work better to match the chemical properties of your treatment with the trail substance. It’s likely to be a mixture of aromatic molecules (such as pyrazines) that don’t actually get removed well by various a…

I am going to try Goo Gone… thanks!

I find that strong essential oils work really well. I’ve often used them around windowsills to keep ants out and it’s almost always effective. Gotta make a relatively wide swath (just smeared on with a folded paper towel) and it’s a good idea to renew it each week for a while as the aromatics even…

[image] teellbee: I was amazed in my old house to see ants following the same path I thought I sprayed clean the previous year! Could it be that the trail route is favorable for reasons other than previous chemical signals, and they just re-establish it each year anyway?

I wondered that too, as it is the case in my house that the corner or the sink bench seems to provide entry, and there they tend to run along the sink/wall edge before branching out

I suspect that foraging ants randomly walking around have found a food or water source and created a new trail to the same place, rather than following the same trail Either that or they are navigating to a certain place by vision or by smelling something other than the sent trail, I doubt the trai…

[image] insectobserver123: I suspect that foraging ants randomly walking around have found a food or water source and created a new trail to the same place, rather than following the same trail Either that or they are navigating to a certain place by vision or by smelling something other than t…

Can one erase ant scent trails?

Nature Talk

roshan2010 September 17, 2020, 4:20pm 2

One thing that works is that if you distract the ants by giving a food source outside (if you can find the hole on the outside) and then close the holes (both outside and inside) that should work.

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Can one erase ant scent trails?

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