How To Remove Ants From Your Drains

Though they may seem like an unlikely place for pests to be coming from, drains actually represent a great avenue for ants to enter your home. Kitchen drains provide a dark, warm place with plenty of food for them to eat, and occasional floods will do nothing to control their population. Thankfully, if you notice that ants are coming from your kitchen drain, you can easily take care of them using some household materials.

Before You Start

Before you begin, you should gather all of the materials and tools that you'll be using to ensure that the process can go as quickly and smoothly as possible. You'll need vinegar, common household cleaning detergent, baking soda, and a spray bottle. All of these items can be found at most grocery stores if you don't already have them lying around your kitchen.

Removing the Ants

First, mix the cleaning detergent and water in a half and half mixture in the spray bottle, and set it to the side.

Then, open the windows of your apartment, or put on a face mask to protect yourself from the vinegar fumes. Then, pour the entire box of baking soda down the sink drain, and follow it up with a bottle of vinegar. This creates a reaction, much like science fair volcanoes, but within your kitchen's plumbing.

The acidic nature of the vinegar will kill the ants, but the expanding nature of the baking soda will push it along. Ants may come out of the top of the drain to try and escape the mixture. Make use of the spray bottle to squirt them and kill them as needed.

Once the process has completed itself, you can rinse out the drain using warm water. You may want to leave the windows open for a few hours to air out the vinegar smell.

Prevention

Once you've cleared out the ants, you should make an effort to prevent them from coming back. You should avoid washing food waste down the drain as much as possible, and if you have a garbage disposal you should make an effort to clean and sanitize it once every two weeks to reduce the amount of food that attracts ants into your kitchen. Further, you should ensure that all food containers in your kitchen are tightly sealed, and avoid leaving food out on the counter: these will attract ants, which, while they may not be in the drain immediately, can easily end up there. You should also consider having a professional come out for drain cleaning.