Key to Being…

First things first.  Clean your counters and floors thoroughly.  Hide or cover anything sweet. Then find the point of entry that the little buggers are using to access your house. Follow up with one of the below:

• Leave dry crushed mint leaves or cloves in the area of most activity
• At the point of entry make a line of cayenne pepper, string soaked in citrus oil or lemon juice, coffee grounds or cinnamon. Ants will not cross line.
• Neem oil is a harmless to humans alternative and works not just on ants but fungi and mold as well.  Just put it in a spray bottle and start attacking the trail and entry point!
• If ants have invaded your birdhouse, rub some Vaseline on the base of the pole to keep them from climbing.  Try not to laugh as they climb and slip
• Baking soda is poisonous to ants (but harmless to human) and they won’t cross it.  Sprinkle at point of entry.
• Ants don’t like flour and won’t cross it.  Sprinkle at entry point.
• Try a 50:50 solution of white vinegar and water.  This didn’t work too well for me, but I’ve heard other people say it works wonders.  If 50:50 doesn’t work, try a stronger solution and spray the entire trail as well as entry point.  And check out these other practical home uses for vinegar as well as marvelous medicinal uses of vinegar!
• If none of the above works, try Boric acid or borax.  Though it’s a natural insecticide, it is toxic so keep pets and children away from it.  Ants generally like sweet stuff, so just mix some sugar or honey with boric acid to make a paste, smear it on the ant trail (on a piece of paper or directly on the ground) and they will ingest it and take it back to their nest.  Start with a 10% to 90% (borax to sugar) ratio, otherwise they ants will notice.  Gradually increase it.

References
- http://www.pestinformation.com/pest-control-ants.htm