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Saturday 31 January 2009

Ants be gone!

Just a couple of days back, I wrote about being invaded by ants!

Ants. Ants. Ants.

If you've been reading blogs or news from this part of town, you would have heard about the heatwave that has struck us. The temperature has been soaring about 40. It was quite uncomfortable, it was stinky hot and worst of all it kept us indoors. We were cut from our routine which involves a LOT of going out, to the shops, pottering in the garden or just going OUT.

What's worst, we have ants in our house. They come in in droves. They march in their mighty line, invading the privacy of our home. They dot my walls, my kitchen bench, my sugar jar. They drive me up the wall.

I spend a good hour in the morning, just cleaning and wiping up little black dots, in my pantry, in the cutlery drawer, in cabinets, under the table, IN the boys' toys, just everywhere! ARrrggghhhh!!

So anyways, I have been looking at means of keeping them out. I don't mind them in my garden, they help pollinate my pumpkins. For days, we've tried just keeping the place clean, I used essential oils, Gary sprayed the outside with surface insecticide, we traced every line to their entry point and blocked it with ant sand. They always find another way in. Our whole place is starting to smell like a chemical plant.

This morning when I was changing Lachie, there were ants in the bathroom and I don't know what made me squirt baby powder on them. Maybe it was just that I had the bottle in my hand. I noticed the black dots (first of all turn white) become somewhat disoriented and the line of ants dispersed. When I came back a little white later, there were no ants.



So off I went with the bottle of Johnson & Johnson, sprinkled mounts of baby powder in corners and along the sides of my pantry wall. Lo and behold, they were gone. Now my kitchen smells like Lachie's bottom freshly washed baby. Best Blogger Tips

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!! That's amazing! Thanks for sharing it! :)

xxx
Leonny

maggie said...

this is great discovery Grace! i think you should create some product out of this, i will be first customer, in the mean time i will use the baby powder method..:)

Anonymous said...

I have the same problem with ants invasion. They even made it to the freezer (and literally froze to death). Guess what I found out that laundry powder works too! so to ensure each room smells appropriately, I use baby powder in our rooms and toilet, dishwashing powder in kitchen and laundry powder in the laundry room!

Grace said...

Leo, Mags: I think the powder has been used pretty widely, I googled it and it wasn't MY discovery! ha haa! ANyways, it was a great find!

The ants still manage to find a different path in though, until i pour more powder into the hole they come through.

Mom-E: Great idea!! Basically any powder huh? Just so happens I have half a dozen bottles baby powder received as gifts from baby L1 days... I'll just use them everywhere!! Gosh another hot weekend coming up...

Anonymous said...

I haven't had ants invade this summer (yet). I have no idea why, but I'm thankful...

Grace said...

Frogdancer! Thanks for popping by... I'm a fan of yours so am deeply honoured. :)

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