Fun & Frustration With Ants

Let me start off by saying, I keep an extremely clean house and have never seen any bugs in the house, not even flies.

Last night I saw an ant in the pantry, the little bitty ones. My husband and I gathered boxes and laundry baskets and cleaned all the food and small appliances out of our enormous pantry. I mixed up a solution of vinegar, borax, a little dish soap and water to clean the pantry shelves and floor. I had been meaning to do that for about a month now anyway. I did find lots of crumbs and some cereal on the back of shelves, my bad.

After I cleaned all the shelves and small appliances we put it all back and I was happy! As a precaution, I placed a paper towel soaked in the cleaning solution on each shelf and a small container of vinegar on a lower shelf.

This morning, I saw another ant and I went nuts! I cleared the pantry out again but before I put the food back, I got on line to see what kind of ‘ant cure’ I could find that was all natural and safe for the dogs. While searching, I even found people who LOVE ants and won’t even give advice on how to get rid of them. I didn’t ask but I looked around and was thinking about it when I saw a post that said ‘don’t even ask’. What a kook!

I saw an ant on the counter so I tested with cinnamon, I think he ate it. I tested with borax and he ran. So I trapped him in a 3″ diameter circle. He was running in circles for 10 minutes! If he went another 10 minutes, I was going to break out the video camera! Well, he finally crossed the line and died. I found another victim but he was stronger and kept crossing the line. So I made the borax barrier taller, didn’t help. I buried him in borax but he kept climbing out and running. I finally got him with my finger. lol I wish I had a magnifying glass.

I am getting obsessed and frustrated. I cannot find out where they are coming in and it is pissing me off. There aren’t a lot of them that I see at once, just 5 or 6. We had put banana peels and apple cores in the trash this morning so I put that in the garage and everything in the pantry is sealed so will they just go away if they can’t get to anything? Any suggestions would be appreciated!! Until then, the bottom of the pantry is sprinkled (heavily) with borax. Smells good though.