Ants can be a real nuisance around your playset, especially if any of the members of your family are not fond of insects. If you’ve ever had ants in your home, you know that they can be challenging to get rid of.
If you’re like me you’re probably wondering how to keep ants off playset? There are several preventative measures and kid safe deterrents you can use to keep ants away from a playset including the use of essential oil sprays and vinegar. For a major infestation, there are homemade ant traps and of course, a number of chemical insecticides.
Getting rid of ants or keeping them away from an area where your children spend a lot of time playing is much harder than rooting them out of a kid-free area. Continue reading to discover non-toxic, kid and pet safe options for keeping ants away from your playset as well as some more conventional methods.
Related: How to Keep Wasps Away from Playsets
Prevention
Ants are everywhere outside. They are an important part of your backyard’s ecosystem, and if you garden, you won’t want to get rid of them completely. Besides, you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to keep ants out of your entire yard. It is an impossible task.
On the other hand, you don’t want them creating nests in your playset or frightening your bug shy toddler while he tries to enjoy his playset. There are several things you can try to discourage ants from building their home near your playset.
Here are some things you can try to prevent an ant problem near your playset:
- Eliminate any food sources from the play area of the playset. That means no dropped ice pop sticks, or leftovers from a picnic lunch near the playset.
- In addition to food, ants also need access to water. Remove any sources of water near the playset play area. Keep your sprinkler for garden water features away from the playset and fill in any places that frequently get standing water. This will also help with mosquitos!
- If you are concerned about ants, avoid using mulch as a ground cover. As it decays, it attracts insects. Rubber mulch and pea gravel are better ground cover options to discourage ants.
- If your playset has a sandbox, stir about a cup of cinnamon into the sand. Ants and many other insects avoid cinnamon at all costs, and your kids can play freely.
- If you haven’t put up your playset yet, inspect the ground for ant hills. You could take care of the problem before it starts.
- Seal your playset. A sealed playset is not as attractive to insects.
Identify the Ants
Before you start getting rid of any ants you may already be dealing with, it can be helpful to try and identify what kind of ant problem you have. You will also want to be sure that they are in fact ants.
Carpenter Ants vs Regular Ants
Carpenter ants are a true pest. They can cause costly damage to homes all while going virtually unseen. If you see ants lurking around a wood source, like your playset or a wood pile, you should figure out if they are carpenter ants or not.
The most notable feature of carpenter ants is their heart-shaped heads. They are typically black, brown, red, or a combination of those colors.
Carpenter ant nests look like holes in woodwork. An active nest would have wood dust outside of the holes because they do not actually eat the wood. They dig it out and remove it in order to make their tunnel system.
If your playset has a carpenter ant infestation, you may want to hire a professional to root out the colony, assess the damage, and to be sure they haven’t gotten into any other structures on your property.
Termites
Termites and ants look very similar, and they have a similar life cycle which involves a winged stage. The easiest way to tell a termite from an ant is their waist. Ants have pinched waists and termites do not.
If your problem is termites, you will need to take a completely different approach, and you may want to hire a professional exterminator to make sure the problem only goes as far as the playset.
DIY Kid Safe Sprays
Chemical-laden ant sprays will certainly get the job done and effectively, but many families are shy about using toxic chemicals around areas where their kids play, especially with the younger crowd who aren’t as shy about what they put in their mouth.
Additionally, even if your kids are old enough to know how to avoid ant traps, you pets will not have the same understanding.
Here are some sprays that are effective against ants without using any toxic ingredients.
Vinegar
Vinegar is inexpensive and something most of us have in our kitchen pantry at all times, which makes this deterrent spray easy to whip up at the first sight of ant trouble.
Mix equal parts water and distilled white vinegar in a spray bottle. Shake the bottle to ensure the water and vinegar are mixed. Spray the playset and the play area with the mixture.
To help with the strong smell of vinegar, add a few drops of peppermint oil to the mix. Vinegar has the added benefit of being antibacterial and helping fight mildew.
Dish Soap
Dish soap will kill ants right away. Mix a tablespoon of dish soap with a cup of water in a spray bottle. Swirl it around without shaking it. Spray the ants directly with this, and they will die almost immediately.
Castile Soap
For a true DIY experience, you can crumble up a bar of castile soap and mix it into a quart of water. Spray this directly on any ants you see. You can enhance its ant fighting power by adding essential oils (see below).
Alternatively, you can mix a few tablespoons of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap in a cup or so of water without the trouble of locating castile soap or crumbling it.
Essential Oils
There are certain smells that naturally deter ants. Essential oils can make the area around your playset inhospitable to ants with their powerful scents.
Mix 15 drops of clove oil, 15 drops of your choice of citrus oil, and 15 drops peppermint oils with a quarter cup of water. Shake the water bottle to mix it all together.
If you don’t have all of these oils, you can use just one or two of them, as long as you use approximately 45 drops in a quarter cup of water.
Spray the essential oil mixture all around the play area and playset to keep ants away. You may need to spray regularly to continue to keep the ants at bay.
Sprinklings
All the sprinkling ideas below are safe for use around kids and pets. You can use them all around the playset and know that the whole family is safe.
There are several things you can sprinkle around your playset to deter ants.
- Used coffee grounds
- Cinnamon
- Cayenne pepper
- Talcum powder
- Cornmeal
- Bay leaves
- Cloves
In addition, sprinkling food grade diatomaceous earth around the playset or anywhere you see ants will not just deter ants, it will kill them. It will also work on a variety of other insects. Focus your sprinkling on areas where you see ants.
Kid Safe DIY Ant Traps
Baking Soda
Baking soda is lethal to ants but mix it with powdered sugar and most varieties of ants will find it irresistible. Mix ⅔ cup of powdered sugar with ⅓ cup of baking soda. Place it where you see ants and let them come and hopefully take some back to their nest.
Aspartame
Aspartame is another substance lethal to ants that is not lethal to humans. Mix aspartame with apple juice or other enticing wet substance and place it in a shallow dish like the lid to a soda bottle or a butter container.
Molasses Sticky Trap
This trap will not help handle the ants that are still in the nest, but it will attract any ants that are in the area of the playset. To create this trap, mix a packet of yeast, ½ cup molasses, and ½ cup of sugar.
Spread this mixture over pieces of cardboard or other durable, disposable material. The ants will come to eat and get stuck in the sticky mixture.
Natural DIY Ant Traps (Not Kid Safe!)
Most natural ant traps that are not kid safe involve the use of borax. Borax is natural, but it can cause skin irritation, eye irritation, throat irritation if inhaled, and nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea if consumed. It is not good for use around children or pets.
On the other hand, if you’re kids are away for the weekend, and you want to put out something to get rid of any ants near the playset, you can try these borax-based traps.
Simple Borax Trap
Mix 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of water, and 1 tablespoon of borax in a plastic container that you don’t mind throwing away when you’re done. Poke some holes into the container so the ants can get in it, but other animals cannot.
You may wish to sprinkle a little bit outside of the container, not using your hands of course. This will attract the ants into the container.
Cornmeal
Mix approximately ⅔ cup of cornmeal and ⅓ cup of borax and put it out where you think the ants will find it.
Corn Syrup
While wearing gloves to avoid irritation, combine corn syrup and borax in equal amounts and spread it over cardboard. You don’t want the consistency to be too runny. Place the cardboard where the ants will find it.
Peanut Butter
If the ants around your playset don’t seem particularly interested in sweet things, they might have more of a thing for proteins. Try mixing a tablespoon of peanut butter and a teaspoon of borax together and see if this entices them.
Poisons
With all the kid safe and natural options available for deterring or exterminating ants, it is hard to imagine that you would need anything else. If you have tried all of the above options and nothing is working, you may be ready to move on to insecticides.
There are a variety of different options for killing ants in your backyard including sprays, granules, and dust. All of these sprays and dusts leave toxic chemicals behind, which is how they can last months without being reapplied.
If you are treating an area near a water source, some chemicals can make their way into the water as well. You may want to consider how annoying the ants really are before you pollute your lawn.
The best option for use around children is a trap that contains a liquid ant bait that they bring back to their ant hill as they do not leave a chemical residue. But even these aren’t really a great option.
If your kids are old enough to understand that they should not touch the ant traps, then you can probably use them around your children without any issues. If your kids are younger and do not understand the danger or are still putting things in their mouths, they can still be very dangerous.