ANTS and baby powder.
This morning I woke up to the word “ANTS” written in baby powder on the kitchen counter. This was after I woke up in a wet spot in my bed from a leaky diaper, or as we call it in our home a ‘pee bum.’ And, that was after I got up in the middle of the night to take care of a pee bum. Hello, Monday!
Now that the diapers are in the wash, the sheets go in next and I’ve cleaned up the ants and baby powder (the ants were going for the sugar in the cupboard), I’m sitting down to tell you how to actually get rid of ants. Hint: It doesn’t include dumping half a bottle of baby powder all over the counter, floor and toaster. [UPDATE: My husband actually did clean up quite a bit of ants this morning. Apparently, they were all over the dirty dishes left out on the counter from last night.]
Get rid of ants with hot water
So, you’ve discovered you have ants. First, assess the situation. How bad is it? Do you see a trail of solid black stretching all the way across your kitchen? Or, can you distinguish the individual ants in a line from a little hole in your floorboard to where you keep your sugar?
If you don’t have too many ants, you can just take a rag soaked in really hot water and wipe them up. This will take a few goes, but it doesn’t involve any chemicals or sprays so it’s quite useful if you have ants all in your pantry, like I did this morning.
If the ants are thick, you’ll probably want to spray them with something first. I recommend EcoSMART’s Ant and Roach Killer. It’s made from cinnamon and rosemary oils. It’s very pungent and greasy. Once you’ve sprayed the ants, you can go to work wiping them up.
Get rid of ants with baby powder
After you’ve cleaned up all the ants, you need to make sure they don’t come back. I’ve found that the best way to do this is with baby powder. Find where the ants are coming from and sprinkle a barrier of baby powder there. Most of the time, I can clearly see the ants coming through a small crack in the floor or wall.
I pour baby powder into that crack and make sure it’s pretty thick all around the crack as well. Sometimes, it’s helpful to make a line of baby powder along the line the ants were following from the crack. The baby powder acts as a barrier to keep the ants away. Apparently, the ants can’t keep a scent trail through the baby powder and it also hinders their ability to breathe.
So, there you go, a simple, natural and effective way to get rid of ants.