.... I want a new kitchen.
The rainy season has started here. It doesn't just drizzle a bit - it pours. The ground around here is pretty dense - lots of hard clay. It only absorbs so much water, fills up the holes, and drains downhill. Most critters & bugs are adapted to deal, but ants get flooded out.
The ants wind up coming into the walls of our older wood frame homes. Most people with homes likes ours get ants this time of year. Even the house rented to the MTV folks was full of them. We do have some really good ant bait that does a great job, but I think we're out right now.
The rest of the house is pretty easy to keep ant-free anyway. You just make sure the kids aren't eating in their rooms, and vacuum thoroughly everywhere. My problem area is the kitchen.
Short of yanking the cupboards & appliances out, I can't get it clean enough. I can make sure the counters & shelves are spotless - I can scrub the floor. The problem is how the kitchen is built.
It's just too old. Things are pulling up & away from each other, leaving cracks & crevices that aren't accessible for cleaning. I wind up with areas I can wipe off on top, but I can't get into the cracks in the walls, or the space between the water heater & the cupboard, or behind the wood back of the cabinet. Ugh.
The best I can do until I get more ant traps is spray bleachy stuff into all the cracks & crevices & hope that stops the stupid ants.
When we get to the point where we can, I'm going to be SO HAPPY to gut that kitchen!!!
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5 comments:
when it comes to gutting the kitchen i wanna help! Is there a construction badge we could earn lol? I have to agree it gets cold in the kitchen. But at the same time i have always familiarized the cold with good times in that kitchen. Eating gallons of ice cream, practicing for talent shows, and just listening to music and talking lots.
We've been fighting our own ant battle. Our kitchen is all new and it hasn't really rained in awhile, plus our kitchen is 10' off the ground. Yet the ants come marchin'.
Ant traps---they are a mixture of maple syrup and boric acid. Really! You can make your own, but you have to get the mixture right otherwise the ants die before they get to the colony (or if not enough boric acid, nothing happens) Also a good alternative ant spray that keeps you from inhaling organophosphates---water, dishsoap, and rubbing alcohol.
Renee - Just before you joined the troop, Rebecca's dad helped the girls earn one by spackling, sanding and painting the wall where we hang Connor's art! LOL!
Steve - Thanks for the tips! I've also found they avoid orange peel rubbed onto surfaces. There weren't that many - I killed the stragglers with foamy hand soap (way cheap). I really don't even like seeing ONE ant!
Still, if I had to choose - I'd pick ants over cockroaches. I don't have a problem with those (whew).
the best ant stuff I've seen is call Terro. It's like ant (killer) candy. I happen to have some extra (we're cleaning put Sue's old beading area and I found several boxes of it I thought I had lost.
Well in my area, we pretty much live on an ant hill. When it rains, they come in to be dry and when it is too hot (a lot of the time) they come in for the moisture. So we have problems quite often. We did get a new kitchen and since our kitchen is in the middle of the house, with no outside wall, they don't come in as often. I decided a while ago, not to kill the Daddy long legs spider that was on the other side of the wall from the kitchen. It lives in the corner of the room and kills all the ants that come that way. The only problem is you have to clean up the remains! But at least they aren't in the kitchen!
One other problem is that when we designed the new kitchen we did not take into account that the darker granite (for counter tops) would hide the ants! EEK!
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