Fight Ants with Lemons

Since we moved into our house about a year ago, ants were seen crawling around the house.  We were not bothered by them as we know ants are bound to appear any where, especially places where there is a constant supply of food all over the place.  And mind you, even when he is 7 years old now DinoBoy is still very careless when he is eating food, he drops crumbs and bits of food every where then failed to clean them up properly, leaving the ants to "clean up" later.

Our ants problem, if I am allowed to call it that, got worst these few months.  We can see ants crawling here and there, either alone, a few together, in a group or in a single file.  We find them on the dinning table, coffee table, kitchen top, kitchen wall, on the air pot, on the floor, they even invaded our poor hamster's food!  Sitting on the living room floor or on the sofa and we risk getting bitten by them, yeah they are so notorious, they think we are their lucky find of a "gigantic food!".  They find their ways into our sugar container (now we know its not air tight as we thought it is) and had numerous sugar high parties.

I casually told Mdm Koh, our weekend cleaning auntie, about this and she suggested to me to use freshly squeeze lemon juice.  She said she tried and it worked, she's never seen any ants on her kitchen counters etc since then.  I was skeptical... how can my various methods of placing star anise, using ants baits, ants chalk, cleaning the area with special disinfect cleaner and many more does not work but a little yellow lemon will solve the problem?

So last Sunday I decided to tidy up the kitchen counter and thought "Why not try out the lemon method?".  I squeeze the lemon juice into a small spray container and started cleaning.  First I wiped the kitchen counter with water then I spray the lemon juice on it and wiped it off.  I even wiped my air pot, Tefal mixer, Philips food processor, tumbler, rice cooker & Nespressor machine - basically EVERYRHING on the kitchen counter!  When I'm done, the kitchen feel so clean and smells so nice, lemon nice.

I was on a look out for any sign of the ants that day; NONE, even after I cooked a lunch and dinner that day.  I thought perhaps its because the kitchen counter is still squeaky clean, too clean for ants' liking.  On the 2nd, 3rd & 4th days I only saw 1 or 2 lone ants crawling on the kitchen counter.  Today is the 5th day and after I prepared and cooked 2 dinners there are still no sign of ants invasion!  Woohoo! 

Since I started baking a few weeks ago, lemons has also started to make their appearances in my kitchen.  I always felt the pinch whenever I have to buy ONE lemon from the supermarket for the price of $0.65 - $0.95, I will jumped up in joy like a little girl when I see the price tag changed to "Buy 6 @ $1.95" and wished I could buy MORE but couldn't find a good enough reason to stock them up until now! 

And here are some more reasons to stock up on the lemons.  There are many more ways to use lemons, you can find them easily in the web with just a few strikes on the keyboard and a few clicks.

Freshen the Fridge - Cut a lemon into half and put them into the fridge, it will remove any unwanted odour.

Deodorize cutting board -  Sprinkle some sea salt and gently rub lemon half over your cutting board.

Remove the smell of fish from your hand - After handling the fish, squeeze some lemon juice onto your hands, rub your hands together, rinse with water.  Repeat if necessary.

Make soggy lettuce crisp - Squeeze half lemon juice into a bowl of cold water, put the soggy lettuce in and pop into the fridge for an hour.  Remove them from the fridge, rinse, dry and add them into your salads or sandwiches.

Lighten age spots - Save money from buying expensive whitening cream spots remover cream.  To light age spots or freckles try applying lemon juice directly onto that area, leave it on for about 15mins then rinse with water.

So for now, in our humble kitchen...