A couple of years ago, we had a pretty bad ant problem in our (then newly painted) house. It was one of those scenarios where the poor cat couldn’t get to her food or water bowl because it kept getting overrun with ants. We ended up calling in an exterminator who got the job done. He also ruined some of our interior paint with whatever chemicals he used to spray inside the house.

Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of ants outside our house, especially right along where the garage door meets the concrete. Last night, while I was out in the garage with D, I mentioned the ants to which he immediately replied, “I have just the thing to kill them!” At that moment I knew he meant some awful ant killer in a can. Sure enough, there was a can of RAID on one of the shelves. I grabbed the can in the hopes of running back inside the house to hide it, but despite my cries of “THESE THINGS ARE EVIL,” D snatched the can from my hands and proceeded to spray. He sprayed up and down the line, and even onto the soil of the bush right by the garage door, while I watched in horror. I believe I kept mumbling something along the lines of “I could have found something less toxic.”

So in the event I come home today to find more ants outside our house, I’d like to be prepared with some homemade ant killer or bait. A quick search on Google gave me a few options like:

Instead of buying ant killer. Purchase a box of saltine crackers. Crumble the cracker and sprinkle over the ant pile. The salt in the cracker will make the ant explode.

Hm. While I obviously want the ants dead, I find having them explode a tad violent. Though I suppose death is death, and the more ants I kill the more I’ll probably end up as one in my next life.

Filed by Maria in home