The Great Ant War

Ants...I hate them. The word ant leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They scamper, crawl and creep into every crack and crevice. No matter how hard we try, short of poisoning the entire neighborhood, we cannot get rid of the disgusting little buggers. This year, much to my utter dismay, they have already started to invade my kitchen. Usually I have a reprieve from them until around May but not this year. I realize that I have to get started early if I want to stave off an all out invasion. I've decided to repackage every item in my kitchen that they might even consider leaving their nasty little footprints in. I have found them in almost everything that is boxed or bagged so my intent is to repackage everything that comes in a those containers. The key being that each item I use to repackage into must be free or almost free. The added benefit being that my cabinets and pantry should be much neater and nicer in appearance. I chose to start with my cabinet right next to my stove where I keep the most used items in my kitchen. Here is my before: And here is the after:

Granted, most of those items are not often bothered by ants, except for salt for some weird reason, but I wanted to start out with an easy to accomplish reorganization. I need some motivation to keep going, so I will try to post pictures of each area as I finish. My pantry is going to take awhile because it is a full closet size.

One tip I will pass on from all this that I find really helps. Sometimes ants are able to crawl along the grooves in the lid of a jar and get in even if the lid is on tight. To solve this problem I place a small piece of plastic wrap over the top of the jar before I screw the lid on. This adds an extra barrier to them.

Cheap containers are fairly easy to find. I repurposed a few, picked up a few at Goodwill, and put the word out to my friends that I'm looking for gallon, half gallon and quart size containers. I've already received a few. I printed out labels with my computer on regular paper and used clear tape to apply them. They are easy to replace when I need to. I hope to be able to finish my pantry and cabinets for very little money.