Its that time again and this is kind of a follow up post about handling ant problems in your home. Every year we have ants when it first gets warm. It seems they know there is a source of food and water in our kitchen and for ants it doesn’t take much to make them happy.
You don’t have to have a dirty house or forget to wash the counter tops although if you have a problem you should be extra clean. Ants can survive on the smallest amounts of sugary products or in my home they seem to head right for the toaster crumbs… I’m not sure but it seems thats where they’re headed. And to our Sink.
This year I thought about it early and just the other night I went out to the garage to check and see if I was going to have to run down to the home store to pick up some products.
Last year I had really great results with a combination of dry and liquid bait traps.
I checked what I had left from last year and I had 3 liquid and 5 dry traps. All of them are for indoors. Last year I had initially started in the house and eventually moved the traps outside.
This year … well just about an hour ago I saw about 10 of the really tiny brown/black ants on the counter so I was happy I had a few traps and didn’t have to make a run.
Now I am not getting paid by these companies but I am telling you as a friend you want to get a liquid bait trap and I am using Terro brand indoor liquid bait traps. I have absolutely no problems giving you this advice because they are FRICKING AMAZING…
You can get them at a home store or a large retailer.. just get them because I have NEVER seen something work this good.
I go out to the garage to get the traps and I am careful when cutting them open. The liquid traps have a small ramp in them that you need to cut a hole in the bottom.
Using a utility knife I cut the traps open after I positioned them upright for about a minute to drain all the liquid back into the reservoir.
I then installed one at my front door and one at my back door.
Pictured is the backdoor trap that is in the kitchen.
I noticed that the ants were coming in the home then traveling inside that white floor molding before crossing the floor over to the kitchen counter.
So, I positioned the trap at the end of the molding instead of at the corner of the door.
I then washed my hands about 5 times because I was about to make dinner. I probably should have used gloves but I actually got very little if any on my fingers.
I would suggest that you think ahead and use some rubber type gloves and then throw the gloves away after you set the trap.
I started to heat up about 3 inches of water in a small pot to make some spaghetti.
BEFORE THE WATER BOILED THE TRAP WAS FULL OF ANTS..
There were very few ants on my countertop maybe 10 or 15 and I killed them with a paper towel..
Within 10 minutes after setting this trap along the path where the ants were coming in.. it was packed.
This is great because its near the door and they won’t be traveling around my kitchen if they all go right for the trap.. and additionally this stuff works.
Its going to take about 3 days for the ants to not come into the home anymore but by that time I am going to hit the home store and get some of the traps that go outside that are made by the same company with this same liquid bait.
Final Note
I just can’t thank the great scientists over at Terro for doing such great work.
Whatever they came up with works and I am going to keep using it every year.
Before this i would put crystals outside the home and use sprays which were horrible..
This stuff is worth every dollar and you get like 6 of them for $5 so there is no complaining considering they work so well.
Anyway if you haven’t been hit yet I suggest you get prepared because with this cold winter these little #@%@!#s are hungry and they’re headed inside.