Vinegar is the anti-ant killer

I'm not the greatest housekeeper in the world.

I admit it. Cleaning is at the bottom of my list every day. However, I do clean my counters after I cook and keep the kitchen fairly clean so I was absolutely appalled to see ants crawling all over my counters.

A few nights ago, I left a particularly nasty pot soaking in the kitchen sink. I went back to the kitchen a few hours after dinner and found ants crawling all over the sink. GROSS. I killed the ants, washed the pot, and sprayed down the counters and the sinks again. I thought the problem would be solved.

Wrong. I woke up the next morning to find a dozen or so (tiny) ants crawling on the counters near the sink. I killed them, sprayed down the counters and sinks, and went searching for a solution. It's the kitchen so I didn't want to use a traditional ant spray, so I went looking for natural options. I saw many - mint plants, cayenne pepper, baby powder, etc. - but the one that came up over and over was to spray vinegar on the surface. Ants are repelled by it and it makes a good cleaner, so it's really two solutions in one. Great, done.

I sprayed vinegar all over the counters and sinks, and I only saw one ant that day. I made dinner that night, used the vinegar to clean up after, and sprayed down the sinks. Great, no ants! This solution was working!

Yesterday I woke up and found a dozen tiny ants crawling on my counters again. I hadn't left anything in the sink so I was absolutely appalled to see these tiny creatures crawling on my clean counters. What confused me more was that I noticed a sticky spot on my floor that was completely ant free, but my clean counters were ant magnets. Grr. Killed the ants, cleaned the counters, then sprayed the vinegar again.

Last night, I made another dinner that required the pot to be soaked (I really should stop burning stuff in my pots) but it didn't come clean after a couple hours of soaking. I didn't want to leave it in the sink overnight, because I was pretty sure the ants would return but I didn't really have a choice. That darn pot wouldn't get clean. I poured vinegar in the pot, sprayed down the counters and hoped for the best.

This morning, I woke up to find ants everywhere. GROOOOOOOOOSS. They were even crawling on the pot I left soaking in the sink. I killed them all, yelled at my spray bottle full of vinegar, but sprayed down my counters again with the vinegar. I cleaned the pot as best I could, but it really could use another soak after the latest scrub.

Then I made a run to Home Depot.

My kitchen has now been sprayed down with a kitchen bug killer made with "botanical pesticides." I don't know what that means, but the damn ants better stay away.