Eliminate Ants Once And For All By Mopping Your Floors With This Sweet-Smelling Essential Oil

Do ants love marching into your home and kitchen? And are you ready to banish them from your sanctuary once and for all? Well, you can start now by mopping your floors and wiping your counters with this sweet and fragrant essential oil: cinnamon. What you can do is add drops of cinnamon essential oil to mop water and use this to mop the floors of your kitchen and at entryways where ants come in through. Some also add ground cinnamon directly to mop water if essential oil is not handy. 

Cinnamon is not toxic to ants, so mopping your floors with it will not kill the ants (unless, of course, you're mopping the ants up at the same time). What the spice does is act as a repellent that confuses the ants' senses, making it hard for them to move around an area. It eventually leads them to abandon the spot, such as your cinnamon-scented kitchen floors. Thus, your home will smell like a bakery, as if you had just baked a batch of our delicious homemade cinnamon rolls recipe, and it will be ant-free. It's a win-win situation. 

If you notice ants on your counters and tabletop surfaces, you can add a few drops of cinnamon oil and some water to a spray bottle. Give it a good shake and spray this mixture over your counters and tables. This will deter ants, forcing them to leave these spots. If you don't have cinnamon essential oil at home, you can mix ground cinnamon with the water. Alternatively, you can add one or two cinnamon sticks into the water and let the fragrance and flavors infuse. After the ants are gone, you can repurpose the spray and make your own all-purpose cleaner. 

But let's say you're someone who doesn't like to mop or clean counters with sprays. Here's what you can do: Place a sheet of newspaper or paper towel by the entryways and sprinkle ground cinnamon over it. Alternatively, place a few cinnamon sticks over the paper towel. You can also soak the paper towel with water that's been infused with cinnamon or mixed with cinnamon essential oil and leave it at the entryways to help deter ants. Whichever technique you employ to repel pests, note that baking cinnamon goodies like our cinnamon orange coffee cake recipe might not work as well.