House and Home Archives - Page 69 of 81

How To Get Rid Of Ants At Home

ants everywhere! sa kitchen, sa sala, sa lamesa… kulang na rin pati sa kwarto! anobah!

how to get rid of ants at in my house?!?

I tried the soap solution but it was never effective. That is spraying the ants with laundry soap + water. Ants go away for a while but then they would form another line to march on. Busit na ants yan! I know, I know they are important to the cycle of life and the ecological balance but these tiny crawlers are keeping me insane! I have slight intolerance to ants.. oh aside from the fact that their bites can be pretty nasty, I sneeze non stop whenever I smell them. I have to get rid of them fast!

And Mr. Google got the answer.. here are some of How to Get Rid Of Ants At Home Tips that I found on the internet (the safe ones):

Keep your house clean. This is by far the most effective and safest trick to get rid of ants. Always make sure that your house is free of left overs, sweets, sticky spills and anything that can attract ants. If you can’t wash your dirty dishes right away, rinsing it is helpful. Make sure that containers, specially the one with sweets (sugar, jam etc) are tightly closed and that ants cannot enter. Always wipe and sweep your kitchen, one a day at least.

If ants is already inside, using vinegar solution can do the trick. Just mix water + vinegar (50-50) and spray it on the ants. These crawlers hate the smell of vinegar and the acid it also removes the scent of the ants.. if you don’t know it yet, that is the reason why they march like that, ants follows the scent that each of them leave as they crawl. Removing the scent will disturb their tracking sense. I have tried it and is very effective, I had to apply it almost everyday for one week before I got rid of the ants.

Herbs and Spices such as cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne pepper is another safe technique, no harmful chemical involve. The strong scent of the herbs keep the ants away (in some cases, as well as other insects). Sprinkle some of the herb where you have seen ants crawling.

Coffee ground has been said to be effective too as ants hates the smell (and I have read even cats! oh…. now I can get rid of the cats popping on my garden!)

Get rid of ants by killing the colony with the use of boiling water. Years ago, I used this technique and it was very effective! I have learned that in order to get rid of ants, you have to kill the queen that produces more ants.. and the only way you can do that is to look for it in their colony (which can be pretty tough).. so what I did was look for their colony and poured boiling water and they were gone.

Laundry Soap Solution is another solution but was not effective on my case. I guess the principle still lies on removing the scent trail.

Sprinkle Talc Powder or use chalk. The talc is a natural ant repellent.

For more How to Get Rid Of Ants At Home tips, here are the links where I got some of the tips mentioned above and other tips that you might want to try:

ants photo from http://insects.about.com

Sigarilyas Flower On My Garden

another gardening update with flowers…

as mentioned a few weeks ago.. mysigarilyas will soon start to flower.. and this week, it did! Imagine my delight waking up to this:

Lovely flower! and oh! the sili is bigger this week! (can’t wait to harvest it)

Creating A Super Hero Bedroom

Getting kids to sleep is never easy, but creating a fun bedroom space for them can at least help with the transition to the bedroom – which is the first barrier to overcome. Many children love superheroes, so this is a great design idea for a child’s room.

The chances are that if your child loves superheroes, he or she will have a particular favourite, usually dreamt up by either DC Comics or Marvel. These characters are designed in such a way as to have an impact using two or three bold, striking colors. If you want to design a room around a particular superhero, you should use these colours as a base – red and blue for example, with a hint of yellow for Superman and a hint of black for Spider-Man.

If you have a little artistic skill, however, you can use a neutral shade for the wall and paint the character over the top – or if you’re feeling particularly inventive, create your own superhero. This can be a great way to engage the child in storytelling, as it provides the freedom for the child to think up his or her own stories for the character.

The bed is obviously an important feature and so you’ll want one which is a little bit fun to engage the child; you can do this by selecting superhero bedspreads for the relevant character. Also, it might be advisable to look for a firm which provides affordable storage beds, like these ones http://www.time4sleep.co.uk/beds/childrens-beds, as you need to free as much shelf space as you can.

This is because action figures are a vital part of completing a superhero bedroom, and these should be out on display, not stuffed away in a box. While the key character should of course have pride of place, the more characters you add the better – your hero needs someone to interact with after all. A great way to finish the room off is with a life-size cardboard cut-out of your chosen hero – that way your child can feel safe with a superhero watching over them.