A few weeks ago we had our first day of warm weather since moving into our new (to us) home. It was glorious! The entire family played outside and we were all cheerful.
The sunshine even got the animals up and out of their winter homes. Squirrels were bouncing from limb to limb, bunnies were hopping around our yard and we even saw a few bees around the flowering trees.
Unfortunately for us, the ants also came alive and started marching one by one across our kitchen counter. This was my first experience with bugs in the kitchen and it made my skin crawl! I seriously couldn’t stop itching. Mental or not, I had to get those ants OUT of the house as fast as I could.
Fortunately, Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons had just given me a couple of essential oils to try out. We looked up an ant repellant recipe and I got to work!
Natural Green Ant Repellant
Ingredients/Supplies:
- 1/2 teaspoon natural soap
- 12 drops of peppermint oil
- 8 ounces water
- Spray bottle
Directions:
Mix natural soap, peppermint oil, and water in a spray bottle and shake well. Spray around windows, door seals, or any other place ants are entering.
That’s it! We’ve had a mixture of cold and warm days since then, but I haven’t seen an ant since. But, rest assured, I’ll use every last drop of this ant repellant (along with these other ten ant repellant options) if I see another one crawling in my kitchen. Makes me itch just thinking about it!
So, tell me…have you ever seen ants in your house?
That sounds like it would smell great too. Do you have any concoction for fire ants outside. I need something green because our chickens roam the yard and I don’t want them eating anything poisonous. Any tips you have are greatly appreciated. Oh and we’ve tried the boiling water thing. Didn’t work. They just treated it like a spa. *wink*