If you ever have had ants running all over your kitchen, you know how annoying they are. In fact, they can get into anything not tightly sealed. Spraying with insecticide may get rid of them for a few hours, but they will be back.

One time my sister-in-law got a bit annoyed with my mother. She made a trail of sugar from outside the house, into my mother’s house, and all the way up to the kitchen counter! It really was not all that funny, but yet it was. It is a simple fact that if you have anything in your kitchen that can attract ants, they will probably show up, sooner or later.

I’ve bought cans of insecticide and sprayed the obnoxious little critters. While they may have a useful function outdoors, they are not acceptable in my house. So, I’ve searched and searched for solutions to get rid of the ants.

If you go to the garden section of bigger stores, you will find ant killer. The most common products will contain borax, with the chemical names of sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate. For some reason, ants like the taste of borax. But, borax kills ants. Borax is actually boric acid, and the acid part of it is deadly to ants.

Ants are by nature dedicated to the whole nest. So, they don’t find food and eat it. They carry it home, to the nest! In the nest, all the ants feed on the borax. And, soon they are victims of boraxicide! It wipes out all of them, including the queen. This solves the problem of dead ants all over your kitchen counter. If you spray the ants, you have to clean them up. But, if you use borax, they go home, eat and die. No mess, and no ants.

It takes about 24 hours for the whole nest to be eliminated, but it definitely works. However, I got tired of paying for borax (which is a rather common chemical), especially since I feel it is overpriced. So, when I heard of an alternative, I tried it the next time ants invaded my kitchen.

You know those pink packets? The ones you use to sweeten your coffee or tea? Did you know you are drinking ant poison when you use the pink packets? Yes!

I sprinkled the contents of the pink packets on the kitchen counter, and on the floor, and the pathways where the ants were traveling to and from their nest. In about 24 hours, no more ants! It works just as effectively as boric acid.