I have been annoyed this summer by the trickle of teeny tiny ants crawling across my kitchen floor. Never very many. Just two or three at a time, but often several times a day. They seemed to always be near the vicinity of the glass doors out to my deck, but this is also near where my youngest son’s chair is, and despite his recent entry into teen-hood, he still believes in eating in a reclined position at the table. This tends to result in potential ant bait being under his chair at any given time.

Recently, we were gone for a week . I was concerned that I would return to find lots of ants in the kitchen. However, and to my surprise and delight, there were none. However, within a day I began to see them again. True, no one had been eating while we were gone, but the door had also been closed. Perhaps they were getting around the screen? After all, being summer, it’s open all the time when I’m here.

I tried spraying the sill of the door with Raid Ant Spray. That would seem to keep them out for a day or so, but the smell was awful and it only worked for a short time. I needed a better solution. A little research turned up the surprising news that ants can’t stand cinnamon. The claim was that they will not cross a line of the spice.

Fortunately I had a monster size container of cinnamon in the cupboard from several years ago when one of the boys went through a brief cinnamon toast phase. So I poured a thin line in the track of the door between the glass and the screen. And what do you know! It works! And the kitchen now smells like a waffle house to boot.

It’s been a week now, and I’ve seen a total of one ant. Presumably he was some sort of genetic mutant who lacked the fear-of-cinnamon gene. I’m not sure how often I’ll need to refresh the line, but even if it’s a teaspoon of cinnamon every couple of weeks, that’s way better than stinky any spray or black dots roaming the kitchen floor. Cool.