How to Remove Ants

About a month ago we had these tiny little ants in our kitchen. We didn't just have a few, we had hundreds! I had no idea how to get rid of them all effectively and I felt like my kitchen was so dirty even though it really wasn't! Here's what I learned about ants and how to get rid of them. Oh, these aren't "natural". I am not against using ant killer or anything else that would kill them. I'm only afraid to use things that might kill my family. And this is not for huge infestations of ants either. Professionals have the keys to that one!

A Few Facts You Never Wanted to Know About Ants
1. The queen is in charge. You want to kill her.
2. The workers are sent out by the queen and then bring back food to feed her. You want to give them the bad stuff.
3. The queen knows when her workers aren't showing back up and will get stressed out and start dispersing her remaining workers in several different directions. You'll want to plan your strategy and attack!, doing it all at once and not doing what I did and suck them up with the shop vac every time you see one because you're grossed out!
4. Ants leave scented trails behind them so they can find their way back to their nest and so other ants can find the trail to the good stuff. Get rid of the trails not leading to the ant killer of your choice and keep the ant trail leading to the stuff that will kill it.
5. Ants like protein related foods (peanut butter) or sweet foods (honey), in my case my mom's strawberry jelly. Figure out what that is and use it against them as part of your strategy.
6. Ants do not like mint, vinegar or white gravel, so use that as deterrents in and around your home.

Planning the Attack
1. Do your prep work. Not necessarily fun, but just necessary. Make sure your floors and counters are clean. Use soap and water to clean or bleach. I used Windex with Vinegar. Strangely enough that killed them on contact, which morbidly I was very intrigued by! Keep your sinks clean and dry and vacuum and clean any areas you think might have spilled food, even in your kitchen cabinets and drawers.
2. Figure out what kind of ant you have. Great article here.
2. Look for the ants in and around your home. Some ants like moist areas and wood (carpenter). Others like dirt in the ground (really?) and wooden stumps and areas like that. Listen for crunching and crinkling sounds for carpenter ants. Dark areas are favorites too.
4. Buy and gather your killing supplies. My favorites are Windex with Vinegar as mentioned or just a spray bottle with vinegar should work too, Terro ant baits (I tried the Raid and the ants could have cared less), and borax (this little beauty I'm going to talk about later this week!). :)

Attack
1. Set out traps as close to their nest as possible, where they seem to be coming in your house and along baseboards, etc. Don't put them in the middle of your living room carpet because you don't want them there.
2. Mix up your own ant killer with 1 cup water, 2 cups sugar and 4 teaspoons boric acid (borax) and disperse that in the aforementioned areas.
3. Kill any ant colonies you find with ant killer spray or boiling water. (That one would be hard for me but hard times call for hard measures sometimes.)
4. Wait. They should be gone in a week. If they aren't, you may need to try other measures that I don't know about (that helps, right?) or call a professional exterminator.

Additional Articles
1. Killing carpenter ants
2. Killing sugar ants
3. General ant help

Good luck and happy any killing!

Any disgusting ant facts or killing ideas you want to share? Post them here!