AT: Nursery reader Marialena has a big problem: My lovely nursery has an ant and spider problem. The room is carpeted, and when I emptied my vacuum last week, I realized that I had vacuumed up scores of ants. Worse still, my husband keeps finding spiders on the wall over the crib. How can I get rid of the bugs?
Move. Okay, seriously....this is a baby's room, and no place for chemicals, so we are back to Grandma's green recipes for how to get rid of the bugs. First up, the ants. Chances are, you have spiders because they have an easy meal around, and if you get rid of the easy meal, your spiders will migrate back behind the loo where they belong. Getting rid of ants is easy, and you probably have all the ingredients you need already....in your kitchen.
Baking soda and salt get rid of ants. Mix them together, in equal proportions, and sprinkle all over the carpet. Leave it overnight, and vacuum up. Repeat every few days, until you don't see any ants, and then a few days longer for good measure.
Ants cannot abide salt - if it is in the path, they won't continue. If it is all over the floor, they will go elsewhere. And the baking soda deodorizes the room, which is nice generally, but also disrupts the scent trails laid down by common ants for those that follow them.
At the same time, check your nursery for anything that may be attracting them - cans of formula, any kind of food item, and get it out of there. Baby clothing and cloth wipes with any kind of food/formula/breastmilk are all attractive to ants.
As for the spiders....we used to live in a building infested with Black Widow Spiders, and swore by Oil of Citronella. Just wipe it on all the walls and ceiling, and if you can, all of the furniture as well, especially the back. This will also dissuade other crawly pests from the room, and according to the EPA, it is perfectly safe around humans and pets.
That is what we would do.AT:Nursery readers, some of you must have encountered this issue - how do you get rid of bugs in your nursery?
We have crazy ants around our house that sometimes come into the house. I also thought salt might work, but to no avail. Even Raid didn't work. But oddly, what did work in the house was a cleaning solution around their trail. I use water with some hydrogen peroxide and continue to clean it a few times a day.
view Carisa's profile
We have ants too. I have tried just about every green remedy I've found online. Nothing works.
The best luck I've had so far is sealing up their entrance. Unfortunately they have lots of entrances, but it does cut down on how many are trekking across my floor.
view Eliza's profile
My mom always used something called "Terro" ant killer. I am certain it isn't green, but I cannot abide ants and would do anything to get rid of them. I used this several months ago when we had an infestation in the kitchen. You drip some of the poison onto little pieces of cardboard and hide them around where the ants are, they take the poison back to the nest and take out the whole colony. The trick of it is that they actually increase at first (yuck!) and then all go away: for good. I have to say that I was surprised at how thoroughly it worked. As for the spiders, we still haven't found a way to eliminate them. Good Luck!
view jegoffin's profile
We had this same problem, except with fire ants which are aggressive and leave painful bite marks. In the nursery. On the second floor (and none on the first floor). So I called the exterminator. He said ants are a big problem in nurseries and nursing homes because they are attracted to milk, drool, and crumbs, even tiny tiny amounts. Obviously very difficult to avoid in these surroundings.
So, he used a special ant bait that is rated safe for daycare centers and nursing homes specifically and which I felt comfortable using in a nursery at home. He was able to put it between the carpet and the baseboards so it was invisible and hidden from a crawling baby who might want to, say, lick the walls. Also he said that ant baits are among the least toxic insect repellents and have to be used sparingly or else the ants get suspicious and won't partake.
Sure enough, within a day or so, the ants left the floor around the nursing chair and went to where the baits were (I guess because I haven''t see them again and it's been a few months). I hope they took the baits back to their nests. I hate fire ants.
As for spiders, I can't help you, but a good exterminator might.
view revans95's profile
We have lots of spiders around our house as well, and used to have tons in our apartment before. We found some 'super-sonic' devices at the hardware store - they just go into outlet (and it has a nightlight to boot). It's supposed to emit some sort of noise that humans and pets can't hear but run the bugs off. I can't say they got rid of 100% of our spiders, but the numbers have decreased where we have them plugged in.
You wouldn't want to use this in the nursery, but maybe wherever you can trace the source of the ants...when I lived in Texas as a student I got some boric acid and sprinkled it around the floor and swept it into all the crevices between the floor and baseboards to repel all bugs. It worked well - mine was the only bug free room in the house. So maybe on the window sill outside, or wherever you find them on the outside of the house, or at least outside the nursery (it really isn't very toxic, so it won't harm animals or adults: see wikipedia's page for more:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boric_acid)
view hs's profile
Sadly, getting rid of ants is not easy, at least in my experience. We have tried many different methods, and the Terro liquid ant bait traps have worked best for us. They contain a sugar syrup and borax--nothing too toxic--so I don't feel bad about using them.
view heps's profile