Uhm. Houston. We have a problem.

For the past week, the kichenette area has been under attack by a siege of ants. And that makes me an ant killer/expert. Here is what you should/should not do when you find yourself in my position.

Lesson 1:

Use a spray. And it should come with a scent. The spray makes it easy to reach a wide area and allow you to come into contact with ants only after they are dead. I don’t like bug spray because it is really harmful and this is my kitchen we are talking about. Thankfully I love the smell of ammonia in window cleaners so that is my preferred way of ant homicide.

The scent is really important since it help to erase the trail set by the previous army of ants. This leaves the next batch of ants a little confused for a few hours.

Lesson 2:

Mouthwash can deter ants from a certain place. Ants are like vampires. We use nonsensical stuff such as silver bullets and garlic against vampire and ghosts. The equivalent for ants do exist. Mint. Cayenne Pepper. Tabasco sauce and black pepper is the same. I happen to not have any of those on hand at this point in time but I discovered that minty mouthwash is good as well. And I use it to prevent the ants from crawling down the side of the cupboards and onto the floor.

Lesson 3:

Don’t bother with baits unless you know the colony is indoors. Baits are meant to kill the entire ant colony and doing that to an outdoor colony is just wrong. Deter them from entering your home by caulking and grouting any available entrances through which they may enter. Then you may kill the ones stuck in your home with a spray. If the entrance cannot be grouted, sealed, caulked, puttied, feel free to use any of the scent methods in lesson 2.

Lesson 4:

If all else fails, call pest control.

p/s: I do not detest ants as long as they are not the biting variety. I am generally not an ant killer. I know people who pour bleach down ant-hills just because they can and I am not that type of person. I don’t hate ants, but I prefer to think that I can co-exist with them being outdoors and me being indoors.