The next time you go for an exhausting workout at the gym, consider not washing your sweat-soaked workout clothes and smelly socks. The reason? They can be used to discourage a wild animal from nesting under your home. Wild animals like foxes like to create den sites under porches, decks or in sheds. They have a natural fear of humans, so leaving garments that reek of the human scent can often be enough to deter them from turning your home into their home. If you have teenagers, their smelly sneakers can also do the trick!

When washing your bedsheets, use less laundry detergent to get them cleaner. Most liquid detergents are super concentrated, meaning a little bit can go a long way. When you use too much detergent, it leaves a film on your sheets. Since this soap is designed to attract dirt and odors, your sheets will act like a magnet and become dirty more quickly. By cutting the detergent amount in half, you don’t risk having a film of soap on your sheets. If you want to know if you’re using too much, simply smell the sheets when they are dry. If they smell like detergent, you’ve used too much.

When you see ants raiding your kitchen, the natural instinct is to squash them on the spot. But if you want to naturally eradicate ants, the best strategy is to leave them alone. Leaving ants alone will let them bring back bait that can kill the colony. All you do is mix sugar and borax -- a natural mineral -- together. They’ll be attracted to the sugar and will take back both sugar and borax granules to their home. Borax is a natural insecticide, and within 24 to 48 hours, the ants should be gone.