The ants go marching one by one ...

You won't hear a "hurrah" from me when they're in my kitchen!! Every summer without fail, we get a critter problem in the kitchen. I used to have such a complex about it thinking I was not cleaning good enough because "obviously" if you have ants or gnats you have a dirty house. They might be in dirty houses, but they're in clean houses, too. I learned that a few summers ago when we visited Jay's grandmother in Alabama. You can eat off her floors- she's one who doesn't go to bed until every dish is cleaned and put in it's place- nothing left in the dishwasher. That summer, she had ants too. By the time we left, Jay had found the root and taken care of it.

Ants are looking for food. So naturally if you have any sweet residue on your counters (think wiping up chocolate syrup from making a glass of milk) and you didn't get the counter good enough because you were being stretched in four different directions- all it takes is ONE ant to find it. (I've witnessed this, but if you have a "garbage bowl" from cooking, that's an obvious culprit!). The ant knows how to get back to the food, and it lets out a pheromone for the rest of the ants to come along and get the food. All it takes is ONE. They follow ant #1's trail and voila! There's your infestation.

So how do you stop it? Stop the trail. Jay went out the other day and sprayed air freshener (that's what was within reach) around the window seal to the kitchen, and on the ground for good keeping- and the ants are GONE. He interrupted the trail outside- now they're looking elsewhere for food. Anything to throw the scent off- I'm sure vinegar water will work, too.

He said he'd leave the cut up lemons I had strategically placed outside the window seal up so the next time we had friends from church over he could mention that was my plan to ward the evil spirits away. Hey, I read in an article citrus was supposed to work- I was on the right path!