ANTS ANTS ANTS!!!

Last week I had been noticing some of the itty bitty ants that are so common to our area, milling about my kitchen floor, just an occasional one or two on the floor and counters. I assumed ‘scouting’ for food and supplies. In the past, on a few occasions over the last three years we’ve been in this house, I would open a cabinet in the kitchen to see a long trail of them leading to some sweet item they had come across that they could access…last summer it was a jar of peanut butter whose lid was not fully closed, other times its been honey, or cookie crumbs. In those events they report back and the hoards descend en masse. Rod generally pulled out the can of Raid or some other chemical mixture and hastily made short work of them. I also come across long trails of them out in the flower garden, along the curbing, and sometimes when pulling weeds in the beds will unearth gazillions of them! They seem part and parcel to the area.

By the evening of the day I’d see the little pests milling about in my kitchen last week, Rod called to me from the bedroom as I had just sunk into my comfy bed with my book, set on an hour or so of relaxing before sleep would overtake me. Before I could respond he appears at the bedroom door with a worrisome look on his face and says “you’d better come out here” rather ominously. I immediately thought “OMG, what is it???” And sure enough, all along my kitchen island were masses of ants! Where they were coming in from the outside (aside from a small crack underneath the kitchen island ledge) and what they had found (because there was no particular destination point that we could see) was anyones guess.

Well the last time we’d been invaded with the pesky pests, and swiftly but toxically dealt with them, I’d decided there MUST be a more environmentally safe method to rid oneself of these critters, and had done some googling. One of the methods I’d come across on some site suggested a syrupy mixture of sugar, borax and water that one puts in their path, which they apparently LUV, eat it and die. It seems that when ingested by ants and other pests, this poison (borax) ruins the digestive system which leads to starvation and their demise. The process takes anywhere from 12 to 48 hours. The ants consider the mixture food (you can put it out dry or in a syrup with water) and foragers will take it back and feed it to members of the colony, including the queen. When the queen dies, so does the rest of the clan. Sounded good to me!

And so, much to my husbands chagrin (his primitive, manly instincts of kill or be killed having kicked in), he of course having by then grabbed the giant can of RAID from the garage, intent on instantly wiping out the attackers of our home and harmony, I set about talking him down, insisting on giving my newfound, non-toxic (well, to US that is!) method a chance. To just give it overnite. And so I made up the syrup and laid it out in small bottle lids and shallow containers. I keep Borax on hand at all times, using it in natural cleaning products and my own laundry detergent I whip up. These homemade products costs pennies per use, no unnatural scents or other toxins, and they cleans beautifully, so I was thrilled when I’d come across a pesticide that utilized the natural mineral. Besides, sweet childhood memories of Twenty mule-team Borax commercials sweep over me whenever I reach for the box in my pantry.

Well I hung around to witness what would happen next. Within seconds the ants were finding the containers and pools of syrup that I had poured directly onto the counter, along with a few cotton balls I’d soaked in it, and were literally gorging themselves on it. They clearly loved the stuff, so much so that the greedy little critters weren’t leaving the trough at all! Many in fact were crawling on top of, and over their buddies, to get to it, and once there just started virtually ‘inhaling’ it! These guys were hungry! Within minutes many were not moving at all! Either too fat and bloated to move or, well, dead! And so the layers of them started to build up, especially in the containers, with some floating facedown (well, I surmise, I couldn’t see that close up) in the syrup even, heck, there would be 30, 50, 100 ants in the small lids.

After an hour maybe it appeared to me some of the dead (?) ants were being picking up and carrying off by other ants. Who knew ants were little Marines at heart…no ant left behind! Well by then it was getting late, and clearly this was going to take a while, so I retired to bed, wondering would I awake to a kitchen completely overcome by ants, or would they indeed be gone. A little anxiety provoking to say the least, not sure how I managed to fall asleep that night, but I did.

Well knock me down with a feather (!), to my utter shock when I came out to the kitchen the next morning they were ALL gone! Well all but a very few still floating (facedown?) in the containers. But not a moving ant in sight, and no more coming in or going out the crack underneath the counter.

Its been a full week now, and not an ant has been seen. Not a one. So I’m hoping the entire colony was wiped out and shan’t be returning. I’m not so naïve as to think there aren't many, probably thousands, of other colony’s outside or even under the house (!), I just hope they aren’t plotting OUR demise in retaliation! I discovered in my search for ‘the cure’ many in our area, and California generally, who said this was just part and parcel of living in these climes. But I’ll be ready next time, and its good to know we have a less toxic (well again, to us!) elimination method.

Here is the recipe for the syrup that works so well:

½ cup sugar
1 ½ Tbsp Borax powder
1 ½ cups warm water
Cotton balls, paper towel, or small shallow jar or bottle lids
Mix the borax, sugar and water together till completely dissolved. Seal it in a jar for future use, and use only what you need in the next steps. Clearly label the jar however, as it will look just like water and should be kept out of the reach of children.

Fill the jar lids, soak the cotton balls, etc, and lay out in the ants path. Now wait. It may take a little while for the ants to all find the solution, but once they do they will feast and take the solution back to the colony. More ants will undoubtedly continue to show up once they find the solution and report back. But within hours, or overnite you’ll see less and less ants until they are all gone. In my case it took overnite, about 8 hrs, though at what point during the night they were all gone is anyones guess. This solution can also be used as a dry mix, without the water, I put out some of both, but it was the syrup they clearly preferred.

Other remedies I came across and have compiled for a time the syrup may not work so well are these:

Cinnamon – does not kill the ants but will prevent them from coming in and will make them go away. They don’t like cinnamon.

Black pepper – non-lethal, non-poisonous, cheap method to get rid of ants. Sprinkle where you see them congregating and watch them scatter. Follow to where they are coming in and sprinkle more pepper at this spot to keep them out. Good to use on window ledges, in cabinets, around any food.

Apple Cider Vinegar – mix half water and half vinegar and pour into a spray bottle. Spray counters or any surface with the solution. A chemical in this vinegar alters the ants scent and they will avoid it.

“Two-legged creatures we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. The four-legged, also, can come to seem pretty important. But six legs are too many from the human standpoint.” ~ Joseph W. Krutch