I can remember my mother buying those “ant traps” when I was a kid whenever we would see a few ants in the house. They were like little tiny tin cans an inch or so high that had holes on the sides so the ants could enter and get access to the bait inside that was supposed to kill them. Apparently, they were supposed to bring at least some of the poison bait back to feed to the queen of their colony, which would kill off the entire colony.

The biggest problem with ant traps is that they do not work. At all. At least they never worked for my mom and the one or two times I tried them in my own house, they were just as useless as I had remembered.

I honestly don’t know if they still sell ant traps since I have not looked for them for many years, but I suspect there’s a good chance you can still get them if you want waste your money on something that does not work.

There are, of course other methods you can employ to combat an ant infestation. There are various sprays such as Raid that is supposed to kill them, but I can’t imagine how you could stop an infestation with spray unless you were able to locate their nest and spray it directly. I never had much luck with sprays either.

Living in a rural area, we have our share of problems with ants every summer. Big black ones, small brown ones, medium sized and probably a few others I cannot think of. Today, however, we had an infestation of the smallest ants I have ever seen in my life. They seemed to be interested in the dog’s food dish which is located right next to a sliding glass door. These were small reddish-colored ants that were so small you almost could not see them.

Figuring it might have been a one-time attack, my wife decided to get out the vacuum cleaner and just clean them up that way. A short while later she checked again and discovered they had returned in force. She vacuumed them up again and sure enough, a short time later they were back again!

It was at this point that we decided to bring out the heavy artillery. There is a product called Terro Ant Killer that I can purchase at my local hardware store. I decided to try it a number of years ago and was surprised to see that the stuff actually works very well.

Apparently, Terro has some other variations of their product these days, but the one I use is a clear liquid that comes in a small plastic bottle that is packaged in an orange box. The liquid is somewhat like the consistency of corn syrup or molasses and apparently is very sweet-tasting, much like the aforementioned food products.

You simply squirt out a little Terro where you see ants congregating or passing through, and give them a little time to find it. Once they do find it, they gobble it up like candy, and presumably bring some home to the queen as well, because after two or three days there are no more ants.

As I understand it, there are ants that prefer sweet-tasting food and others that are referred to as “grease eating” ants. Obviously, being as sweet-tasting as it is, Terro is intended to work only with the ants that prefer the sweet stuff.

I can say, however, that I have not encountered any ants in our house that have refused to indulge when there is Terro to be found. In fact, those tiny ants I mentioned earlier are feasting on a nice drop of it as I write this. Judging by their size, a single drop should wipe them all out within a day or two.

You may be able to find Terro at your local hardware store but if you have trouble locating it in your area, check out the Terro website and maybe you can find out where you can get some.

If ants are your problem, Terro is a solution you really should try. Unless you run into the elusive “grease eating” ants that we have never encountered, I’m confident that Terro will solve your ant problem.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: ants, bait, infestation, poison, spray, terro