Whether you’re dealing with tiny ants that sneak in through imperceptible cracks in your kitchen walls or large ants that boldly walk in through the front door, keeping ants out of your home can be exhausting. Chemical ant traps can keep ants out of your home, but thankfully, there are non-chemical options that also work well — including one you likely have sitting in your spice rack.
Ants can’t stand the smell of black pepper. You can use it to help deter them from coming into your home. Ants are super-sensitive to scents, which explains how they can seemingly smell what you’re whipping up in your kitchen from a mile away. Capsaicin — the element that gives cayenne and black pepper a spicy kick — is an irritant to an ant’s delicate sensory system. That’s why they tend to hit the road instead of crossing a super-spicy bridge to make their way into your home.
Using pepper to discourage ants from entering your home
If you prefer natural living, switching from chemical ant traps to natural pest deterrents can be an easy way to reduce the amount of chemicals in and around your home. Using natural methods to keep ants away can reduce the amount of time you spend fighting the seemingly never-ending battle against them. To keep ants at bay, simply sprinkle black pepper (or cayenne if that’s what you have on hand) around the exterior of your home.
In addition to sprinkling spicy black pepper around your home’s exterior, you can also sprinkle coffee grounds to create an even stronger ant-repelling barrier. Cinnamon can also work well in your ant-repelling spice mix (it’s also a great fit if you have ants in your garden). If you have an especially hard-to-squash ant problem, you can try leaving small piles of black pepper, coffee grounds, or cinnamon at the areas where ants tend to enter your home.
