Today’s guest post is from Marie McKinney-Oates of McKinney-Oates Cereal, a blogging newlywed and relationship counselor.
Marie: (Sniff sniff) Did someone spill a bottle of Clorox somewhere?
Mark: No, I mopped the kitchen floor.
Marie: (Check outside for Jesus. He must be back.)
Mark: The ants are back. So I had to clean the entire floor. And I made up my special ant deterring recipe -
Marie: Wait. You have an ant deterring recipe?
Mark: Yeah, I don’t want to kill them because they help out with termites -
Marie: Who helps out with the termites?
Mark: The ants.
Marie: Okay…
Mark: Anyways, I don’t want to kill them, I just don’t want them coming in the house. So my ant deterrent is outside leading them away from the house. And I had to clean the floor to destroy their scent because, as I’m sure you know, they leave a scent that the other ants follow to the food source…
Marie: I didn’t know that. I don’t think anyone knows that. There’s food in our kitchen? Since when?
So Mark’s on a mission and everyday that he spots an ant my kitchen floors get mopped. I’m not saying that I’m helping the ants into our home, but I’m also not saying that I don’t love clean floors.
How funny! I did the same thing….mopping the floor like a moppin’ fool! It didn’t work though. As hard as I tried to keep everything clean and food free (container-ized everything in the pantry, etc) and totally obsessed over these ants – killing the “scouts”. I know, I know, I was crazed.
What finally worked for me – and I’ll leave it up to you if you want to tell Mark, was to put baby powder by the door, around the outside perimeter – just a bit was enough. The ants hated it and stayed away for months. If they peek about again, more baby powder. It even smells good.
Thanks for the laugh, you write so well!
@ Janet – What a great idea, thanks for sharing, I’m sure Marie will appreciate the tip :)