Posts Tagged ‘cabinets’
How to exterminate ants
Image via Wikipedia
This is a guest post. Since we’ve had some of these come into my house already this summer, I thought it was a very timely post.
Ant Killing, Starting with the Kitchen
If you’ve got ants in your house, you need to get the problem under control quickly, before the infestation grows.
This post is dedicated to a key aspect of ant killing: checking all areas of your kitchen, including ones most people don’t think about, for ants or food particles.
If you want to know how to exterminate ants, start by understanding the places these pests tend to use as hiding spots.
There may be an area of your house you don’t realize is home to ants. Read on to make sure you’re not overlooking these vital locations.
Refrigerator
When ant killing, it’s important to look in places you wouldn’t normally consider.
Start with your refrigerator. The top of your fridge is a hotspot for ant activity. It’s warm and often dirty, so clean here often to prevent an ant infestation. If you’ve got ants here, this is a great location to put an ant trap.
Besides the top of the fridge, look under it. Thanks to spilled food and drinks, it may be the ant buffet location of your kitchen. Pop off the grate and use a flashlight to look under. If you see ants, stick a trap there. To keep ants from congregating under your fridge, keep the area clean. If you have a spill, clean it up quickly before it finds its way far under and out of your reach.
Trashcan
Your kitchen trashcan is another key spot for ant infestations. Keep the lid closed and empty it often. If food gets spilled on the inside of the trashcan, clean it out.
Cabinets
Out of sight doesn’t mean it should be out of mind. The tops of your cabinets may not get your attention often, but if you see ants in your kitchen, you should clean this area. If you see ant activity on the top of cabinets, stick some ant traps there.
Inside your cabinets is another common spot ants congregate. Check under the cabinet paper lining, which is a great place for the ants to hide. When storing food, make sure it’s in airtight containers. If there are any spills, even the smallest crumbs, clean them up.
Carefully inspect the insides of cabinets for cracks, crevices and corners that can conceal the ants.
Sink
Your sink is the perfect place for an ant infestation. They gather there to drink. If you don’t see ants on the top, check underneath your sink. If you have a leak under your sink, ants could be gathering there, using it as a waterhole. Check your pipes regularly and fix any leaks as soon as possible.
Stove
Just like the underside of your refrigerator can hide food that has spilled, so can your stove. Crumbs find refuge under the stove.
Baseboards
And when looking under your stove, take a look at your baseboards. They often have sticky food residue, which is incredibly enticing for ants.
Now that you received more information about ant killing in the kitchen, your next step should probably be learning more about how to exterminate ants in other locations of your home. Post written by guest blogger Michelle Anderson.
Kitchen Changes
I’d love to remodel my kitchen. However, Bill won’t let do any big money changes until the kids are older (and can’t wreck it. Though I don’t know why he doesn’t think they can wreck it when they are older!). Instead, I keep making cosmetic changes like adding an island kitchen cart (or was it a drop leaf kitchen cart), redoing the counters, buying new cutting boards, etc. I’ve cleared out the garden window, so instead of holding knick knacks, I can actually put some flowers in there! We are moving the pictures and the artwork in this room too. I have hung some of what the kids made at school in one corner of the room. The other items that were on the walls have just been moved around. I am even looking at the cupboard paint that I saw on TV. I can’t decide if painting my cabinets would be a good idea.
My cabinets stink. They are tiny (which is why we have 20 other places in there that we store stuff). To put plates in, you actually have to turn them! The stain job on them is bad and did I say I hate them. However, I can’t decided if we paint the fronts to make them look better that it won’t look dorky. I hate to spend the time (and money!) doing it to have them look terrible or worse than they do already.
Does anybody have experience with cupboard paint? Does it look cool? What changes have you made in your kitchen?







