Saturday, July 2, 2011

Dryer Sheets

After we got back from our vacation, we were thrown immediately into getting ready for the flea market and couldn't really think about anything else.

Including the ants in our kitchen.

{I know, gross.}

We're not really sure what happened, but somehow a few ants made our kitchen their home while we were gone. Luckily, they weren't really bad, so we could sporadically kill the ones we did see when we took a 3 minute crafting break. After the flea market was over though, I focused on finding the source of the problem, which oddly enough, I couldn't find. A few ants were on opposite sides of the kitchen, but neither group had a trail of ants to show me where they were coming from.

On a whim, I decided to try out a tip I saw on the internet. It was in an article of ways to reuse dryer sheets where people also included extra tricks in the comments. Several comments suggested that dryer sheets repelled mosquitos {which I've heard before} but one also said they repelled ants. I figured, what the heck! Certainly doesn't hurt anything to try it out. So I stuck a few in the pantry where I most frequently saw them and forgot about it.

Fast forward to a few days ago when I commented to Cody that we hadn't seen in ants in our kitchen in a while. Today, as I was cleaning, I found one of the dryer sheets hidden behind a frame near the sink and remembered my tip that I tried out. I quickly went over and checked our pantry and yep, it was empty of ants!

I'm plan on leaving them in there just as a safe guard, plus add some on our back porch. We've had several making a trail up to Kota's water and I hate having them so close to the house.

One more trick that I tried out was to use dryer sheets to wash your car. People, a few weeks ago I washed our car and spent a good 15 minutes trying to scrub the bugs off the front without great success. Last weekend I washed the car and used the dryer sheets on the bugs. Seriously, they came off without much work on my part at all!

You definitely want to check out the comments on how to reuse a dryer sheet. You never know what great tips you'll pick up on!


abby-signature

2 comments:

  1. I meant to leave a comment on your last post. I would be interested in doing the "Sponsor Swap" with you. I don't have a button or an etsy shop but would be willing to feature you! Our blog is basically my scrapbook with a crafting, decorating, & Jesus thrown in!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oooh good tips. You should consider doing a link up for tips! ;)

    So this isn't a tip for dryer sheets BUT if you have the ants come back, you should try cinnamon. When we lived in VA we seriously lived out in the woods. Like in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain! I read that ants can't cross cinnamon so I sprinkled some on our door frames and window ledges and after a few days, the ants were gone. I eventually vacuumed up the cinnamon but the ants never came back! My friend Kassie (who write Raindrops on Roses) also said that ants can't cross oil but I'm not sure that you want to make an oil mote around your house!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting- I love hearing from readers!