Saturday, May 3, 2008

It's easy to get rid of your ant problem. Find out how.

Back when we first got together, Matt refused to kill any bugs. He would pick them up and put them outside. Though not a frequent participant in insect genocide, I've been known to dispatch them every once in awhile. Especially ants. Once they start coming in, it's hard to get rid of them. And they just keep on coming, so you can't put them all outside.

When confronted with a bug killing situation Matt would always point out that his friend Laurie never killed bugs, but put them outside. This information would cause me to roll my eyes. Luckily, one day we were at Laurie's house and she mentioned the ant problem they were having and that thankfully her grandmother had given her a very good remedy to get rid of them.

"Sweetheart, Laurie says she gets rid of ants." I said very happily.

Matt isn't much a fan of ants, so I think he was thankful that Laurie not only had stooped to killing ants, but also that her grandmother had an effective remedy. We're working on a preventative solution here; we've planted members of the mint family all around the house. The ants supposedly don't like mint and will stay away. While we are waiting for that to work, we use this remedy when the ants do come exploring. And now you can too. Follow along with the mugging for the camera as you learn to make your own ant bait.

Matt points to the ingredients. You need one part sugar and one part Borax.
I just made up a whole batch and put it in a clearly labeled jar. No, no Matt! Don't drink from the jar! Looking at the Borax label, it doesn't seem like something you would want to ingest, but it also doesn't look highly toxic, either. I'm not so sure about pets. Probably best to keep them away.
Matt is holding a plastic version of a baby food jar. You will need as many baby food jars as you want traps. Obviously, dispose of the baby food and clean out the jars first.
Place two-ish teaspoons of the sugar/borax mixture in the baby food jar.
Tear off a piece of paper towel big enough so you can fold it over once or twice and set it in the jar. The paper towel should be at least big enough to cover the sugar/borax mixture.
Place it on top of the sugar/borax mixture.
Take some water. Yes, you can drink this.
Pour the water onto the paper towel. You want to turn the borax/sugar mixture into a sort of sludgy mess and wet down the paper towel. You don't want a swimming pool in there, more of a marshy swamp.
It should look about like that.
Set the trap wherever you have ants. Then wait. They will discover the trap and spend a few days there. Then, after a week you will be left with a few dead ants in the trap and no ants running around your house. It's kind of weird, but that's how it happens. Every time. You can then pick the traps up until the next invasion. Or you can just leave them hanging around in case any opportunistic ants come around. Kind of like when Indiana Jones walks into the temple and sees all those skeletons of people who came before.
Laurie's grandmother died this spring, but I will be forever grateful she passed along this remedy first.

1 comment:

Sara K. said...

Great tip! Thanks for a very fun and demonstrative post! :) -S