How to Make Boric Acid Ant Traps

A few months ago we had a terrible ant infestation. There were hundreds of ants in the kitchen. They were crawling all over the counter, in the cupboards, in the compost bucket under the sink, and even getting into the cat and dog food. I don’t like to use poisonous chemicals, so I tried several different natural methods to get rid of them, including cayenne pepper and cinnamon essential oil, but nothing worked. I was really at my wit’s end.

Then I learned about making these simple ant traps with boric acid and sugar. I went down to the hardware store and got a container of boric acid, and tried it out.

Boric Acid Insecticide Recipe

• 1 cup water
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 Tablespoons boric acid

Combine all the ingredients and stir to dissolve the sugar and boric acid. The boric acid is a little hard to dissolve, so it is best to use hot water and stir for a long time. It makes a sticky syrup that will attract ants.

To make the ant traps, collect some bottle caps or jar lids. Soak a cotton ball in the boric acid/sugar solution and place it in the bottle caps. Set the bottle caps where the ants will find them, such as on your kitchen counters, or wherever you see ant trails. The ants will eat the solution and also take it back to their nest, killing the ants there.

This worked remarkably fast. I was really amazed at how effective it was. The night I put the traps out, they were swarming with ants within a short period of time. By the next morning, the number of ants was dramatically decreased. After two or three days, I didn’t see a single ant anywhere in the house. To make sure the ants didn’t return, I soaked some more cotton balls and set the traps out again a few weeks later.

Is Boric Acid Toxic?

Is boric acid toxic to humans or animals? The short answer is, yes, if you ingest a large enough amount, it is toxic. But if you use it as described here, be careful not to breathe the dust, and keep it away from children and pets, it should be safe to use in your home.

Here is a link to a fact sheet from the National Pesticide Information Center with lots of information about boric acid.