Seeing any ants around your place now? It's a pattern at our house - with the warmer weather comes ants. They first show up in a colony of sorts along a walkway in the yard. Then they somehow find their way into the house. If you've got this going on as well, then get rid of these pesky, uninvited visitors with this traditional and effective approach found on "New England Minute," part of the wonderful magazine, Yankee.

A simple recipe using sugar, Borax and water will takes care of ants in the kitchen. Here's how it works: Ants are cannibals. One ant will eat the mixture and die. Another will eat the dead ant and die. Eventually, you'll get the whole nest. Here's the recipe for safe and inexpensive ant removal:

Easy and Inexpensive ANT REMOVER: Just mix 1 cup of powdered sugar with 1 cup of Borax detergent booster. Put this mixture in flat pans or jar lids and place them under counters and behind appliances, but out of reach of children and pets. So long, ants!

And one more great tip from Yankee Magazine. Did you know that a new broom will sweep clean and last longer if you soak the bristles in hot salt water before using it for the first time? Once your broom's good to go, it's much easier to banish that dried-up mud that seems to find its way onto our kitchen floor in the spring.

AND, speaking of brooms, here's a tip from moi: I use my broom to clean my bathtub. Yes. I spray the bottom and sides of the bathtub with my cleaner and let it sit for a minute or two to break down the scum, any gunk, and any build-up. Then I whisk the broom up and down the sides and thoroughly across the bottom of the tub. I run a little water to rinse the broom out, then whisk the wetted broom all around the sides and bottom of the tub once more so the tub is rinsed out. This method saves my back, cleans the broom as well as the tub, and only takes a couple of minutes.

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Sources:
www.pennlive.com
www.hardtofindpartysupplies.wordpress.com
www.letthedogin.com
www.dvo.com