No food in the pantry

It’s all on our counter.

The ants are back again.  About a month ago, I was tired of little black sweet ants invading my kitchen sink everytime I forgot to do the dishes.  Since that meant that every morning I woke up to a sea of ant bodies rolling all over the kitchen, my husband was kind enough to call out an exterminator.

The guy was great but not quite great enough.  You see, we live in a townhome and share a wall with our neighbors.  That wall happens to be the one with the cabinets that store all of our dried goods.

A week or two ago, we had our first ant invastion.  They bypassed all of our carefully sprayed outlets, walls, and general ant throughougfares and made their way in through the shared wall.  The pantry got a necessary clean out and I thought we were safe.

Wrong.  Right in the middle of the great garage reoraganize of ‘08, the ants decided to come back in full force.  The last of the peanutbutter crackers? Swarmed. The vanilla granola?  Moving on its own. My honey roasted peanuts? Oh so icky.

I was able to  salvage almost anything individually packaged or unopened.  Basically that meant the fruit snacks, canned soup and anything unopened is left sitting on our counter.

Tomorrow, I’m doing the weekly grocery shop.  On the list–lots of ziploc baggies and individually packaged snackies.  I know it’s not the most environmentally friendly option, but I’m tired of wasting food to fill ant stomachs.

Any suggestions for ant-proofing my cupboards would be greatly appriciated.  I am so done with summer!

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Brothers-All-Natural.