So those new ant bait traps arrived on my doorstep yesterday. Each trap is basically clear plastic packaging that contains a sticky, thick clear liquid. Just look at it here.
The instructions tell you to break or snip off one end of the package and place it label side up on a surface where the ants will find it. In this configuration, the liquid stays inside the trap and the ants are supposed to then make their way into the trap via the hole at the end, feed, and then leave. I quickly discovered this was not gonna work for me.
The ants that are infesting my apartment are much smaller than the ants you might have seen outside on a sidewalk or something. I believe they are called pharaoh ants. These ants are tiny. The opening to the traps is elevated off the ground and are way too high for them to easily get into the opening. The second issue is that the liquid bait inside the trap isn’t attractive enough for them to smell it and then investigate. They just ignored it or couldn’t smell it.
Some of the reviews of this trap mentioned they had pour small drops of the liquid bait directly onto the surfaces where the ants might find them. I did this and I also discovered I had to pour the liquid right in the paths of where they would traverse. A drop even like 5mm away from their “highways” would not be touched or noticed. I also used a cotton-tip to apply the bait along a vertical crack in the cabinetry where I saw lots of ants coming and going.
I did this both under my kitchen and bathroom sink. Last evening, I had dozens and dozens of ants eating from the bait in both locations. My original thinking was that the kitchen sink had more ants but it was the bathroom that attracted more. Keep in mind, I taped off the most probably point of ingress in the kitchen, so this is most likely a sign, I’m closer to solving the problem in the kitchen.
Anyways, after a night of feeding, I went to check both areas this morning. In another good sign, all the ants had left and I saw no dead ants anywhere. This meant that the ants that fed had taken the bait back to wherever they have their home and I’m hoping they shared the deadly bait with others.
This evening, I haven’t seen a whole lot of ants in either location but I refreshed the bait areas anyways. This liquid stuff tends to harden a bit after 24 hours and the manufacturer recommends keeping the bait as liquid as possible.
I’ll check again later this evening to see if the ants come back to feed. My hope that the extermination process has started and the ants will start dying in another day or two.