8 ways to get rid of ants - from commercial products to natural remedies

With warmer weather on the horizon, more and more people are facing problems with ant invasions in their homes and gardens.

But according to Alice Beer, speaking on This Morning today, there are several ways to deter the critters. She listed eight - including tips about deterring them in the first place and products you can buy to get rid of them.

For her first tip, Alice noted it's important to make sure you keep your home clean, saying: 'It's the warmer weather, they're coming out. They're having the time of their lives...but what they want is food...And if you're going to leave food out for them very generously, then they're going to come and take it. 

'Any food. They want sugar, they want grease, they want protein. So just to be disgusting, if you leave dirty laundry lying around, they're going to go for it. 

'If you leave stains in your cupboards, if you leave a little spill or cereal on the floor, they're going to go for it.'

Alice Beer (pictured on This Morning today) shared a number of solutions for deterring ants from your home

Leaving out food for your pets can also encourage ants, she said, adding that one ant could soon become an infestation of 700. 

However, she added, there are 'lots and lots' of products that will get rid of, or deter ants. 

She noted that ants are 'brilliant' for the environment, and that they turn over the soil, and they're really good for ecosystems, so we don't really want to get rid of them, we just want them to go elsewhere. 

For her further tip, she started looking at some of the products available, Alice said: 'Things you have to be careful of, if you're going to use anything with a chemical base, is just be careful of pets, obviously.'

The first product she listed was Raid Ant Bait.

According to Alice: 'This is has been my go to, it has the chemical inside a little pot, and you make a hole two holes in it. The little workers go in one side, they collect it, then they pop out the other.

'They put it on their trail...and what they're doing is the leaving pheromones all the way along that are saying "hey guys, follow me back to the nest", [which] will become smaller and eliminated.'

For her third tip, another product she recommended is Home Defence Ant Stop Granules, which she described as 'fairly pet safe'.

One solution, which Alice said gives her the 'heebee jeebees' is Nemasys (pictured) a type of parasitic worm you put in the garden

'Likewise, this is a powder,' said Alice, 'which is for outside use... it's a bright colour on purpose so that you can see it obviously. This powder eliminates all black back garden ants.'

She noted that the product should not be used near pets. 

Recommending another product as her fourth tip, she said: 'If you've got borax in your laundry, you know it's a natural sort of salt which is interesting thing. You can put that down as well.'

Moving onto more natural remedies, Alice said that ants do not like smells, including peppermint, citronella, and cinnamon, and that they also hate cayenne pepper.

Her fifth tip was another commercial product that she recommended, called RepellShield Peppermint Oil Ant Repellent Spray.

Alice explained: 'What you do, you just spray it along their trail. Spray it where you see them coming. It would almost be as quick to clean, but if you want to deter them got that or put these by your back door.'

According to Alice (pictured, right) using natural solutions like essential oils is good for deterring ants, whereas commercial products is better for getting rid of them

For tip number six, Alice said: 'If you want to deter them, I'd go for the nicer [solutions] including essential oils. So that's lemon, peppermint, cinnamon. Put your essential oils on a tissue and leave it on their trail.' 

Her seventh tip also involved a natural solution: 'If you've got ants, or if you're prone to ants, vinegar - household cleaning vinegar, white vinegar...is such a good cleaner.  Put it on a cloth, wipe over, and you're not going to get ants. They'll hate that.'

Moving onto her eighth tip, Alice said: 'Now, this gives me the heebie jeebies. 

'What is this? This is nematodes...these are basically parasitic worms...When you mix them with water and you put them into your garden, hose them all over the garden.

'Be very careful what you do, because it will upset your ecosystem, but gardeners know about this because it basically the parasites live off things...and they will basically mess with colonies of ants and they will get rid of ant colonies.'