Got Ants?? PB&J to the rescue!!

You know you're livin' la vida natural when your kids mark the Seasons by the critters that invade your house. It's only slightly embarrassing when they write to their penpals about it ...

Anyway, ants are the pest du jour. And toxins aren't our cup of tea. Ant traps can sometime work, but it's still a toxin. DE (diatomaceous earth) works ... at least eventually. So what are you supposed to do till then?? How about some PB&J??

~August 2nd, 10:30pm ~ Oh yea .. there is some serious snackin' going on there!!~

PB&J Ant Solution:
*Equal parts peanut butter, jelly, & borax
*Mix together well, set in a bowl in the ants' pathway.
*VERY IMPORTANT -- KEEP AWAY FROM KIDS & PETS!! Borax is natural but deadly!!

We noticed the ants in the kitchen (and other windows) after we had our windows professionally cleaned. They had vacuumed up the DE that was in the windowsills and the ants returned, trying to reclaim the land they thought rightfully belonged to them. Those ant bastards.

So .. we mixed up the pb&j mixture. There weren't any ants around the container immediately. The above and below photo were taken about 2 hours after we had set out the bowl!!

~August 2nd, 10:30pm, close-up ~ Before this, we had only seen about 10 ants here!!! Start counting if you want, but there is WAY more than 10 here now!!~

It's an ant smorgasborg!!! Immediately the ants began swarming to the Pb&J bowl. It was really kinda amazing.

~August 3rd, 8:20am ~ Where'd the ants go?? Is the party over??~

This is what we awoke to the next morning. The party was over. As the hours passed on, the ant numbers dwindled. Some of the ants in that photo are already dead (closer to the pb&j), some are alive (running around the rim of the dish). But the party was over.

We've used this solution before in the bathroom, where we really had a stream of ants coming in from the window. We've actually placed it back in there. No, doing this won't keep them away forever. Take away the bowl and eventually the ants will come back. This recipe will solve your current ant problem. If you keep it there, it'll attract the ants and the borax in the pb&j mixture will kill them. If you take it away though, eventually the ants figure it out and come back.

But .. till then, it DOES work. If you have cats who like to check out your windowsills I may not recommend this. We keep this stuff perched up high and out of the way of nosy critters -- dogs and kids alike. You could likely cover it with some mesh wire or screen, but know your pets and use your instincts.

Till then .. cats aside, here's an eco-friendly alternative for ant control.