Can I get rid of them naturally? At the moment we have one of those little traps they walk through and supposedly take back to the nest to kill them, but I actually don’t mind ants and feel a bit bad killing them all, but I certainly don’t want them in the kitchen (or anywhere in the house really).

Anyone got any tips or success stories for me? x

You can repel them with mint - sprinkle peppermint essential oil around the place they are coming into your home or stuff cottonwool balls with a couple of drops of the oil on into crevices.

Ooo, thanks, will get hubby to pick up some peppermint oil today and try it.

Definitely try and find where they are coming in and put something there to deter them.  I used ground cinnamon after reading that they didn’t like it and it worked.  In trying to find a way to tackle them I ended up finding out quite a bit about them and they are fascinating little creatures.

They aren’t keen on penny royal either.

I blocked their entrance into the house last time. Expect I had a few casualties but also don’t want to harm them all just cause they wandered in. In fact it was only OH insistence that ants were not an interesting kitchen feature that eventually forced me to take action. I quite liked their presence and it kept the children occupied for ages watching them.