In the beginning of #SaferAtHome, my husband, a doer if ever there was one, became obsessed with our cordless vacuum cleaner. There was nary a dog hair or toast crumb to be found in our home; that vacuum cleaner was always either running or recharging. His reward for his labor was a full dust canister to empty into the trash. I am grateful that obsession has passed, and that he has found other problems to solve in our home …

When it rains a lot, as it has in Nashville lately, ants get flushed out of their outdoor nests and look for dry, higher ground. Kitchens are an ideal place to go because they provide a food source and shelter.

One of the things I love about my husband is the way he quietly observes a problem and then gets laser-focused on solving it. This past Saturday the problem was ants all over the kitchen. Searching the Internet, he found a recipe for a DIY ant remover solution that used supplies we had in the house.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of Borax
⅓ cup of sugar
1 cup warm water

Supplies
condiment lids or bottle caps to serve as trays for the solution
cotton balls
a lidded jar for storing the solution
a spoon or bulb syringe for moistening the cotton balls

Directions
Mix Borax and sugar in warm water in a glass jar with a lid. Dip cotton balls into the mixture and place them onto small lids that serve as a tray. We made three of these trays and placed them close to the wall on the countertop. Do not place them on the floor where a child or pet could get to them.

The ants were gone in three days. Ants are attracted to the sugar, and the borax gets ingested and taken back to the nest. He adds more solution as needed to keep the cotton balls moist.

Related How-to Posts

Readers who have been around for a few years may remember when my husband created the Nifty, Thrifty Thaw Detector for our freezer so we could tell if we had a power outage while we were out of town. If we had, the penny would be at the bottom of the container when we got home. This is another use for condiment holders if you buy a bag of them.

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