The Cleaning InstituteAnts may be small in size, but it doesn’t mean they can’t pose a threat to the quality of your property as they move and create ant hills. When in a colony, ants are known to cause significant damage to the yard and can even bite residents who spend time outdoors. Our team tested the top ant traps on the market to determine which ones worked the best and combatted ant infestations to provide you with our top recommendations.
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With our years of experience testing various products, our team continues to use testing categories during our process to rate and score each item. When it came to reviewing ant traps, our categories included Efficiency, Design, and Quality. The points earned for each category influenced how the ant traps ranked to ensure we had more accuracy with the results.
This ant killer bait is convenient and easy to use with stations that include a liquid that kills the bugs quickly with its fast-acting formula.
Most notable upside: We found that TERRO was effective at killing swarms of ants and significantly reduces the numbers of the colony after the ant retrieves the liquid and brings it back to the nest. We liked the patented design of the TERRO Ant Killer Baits because it prevented us from having to handle chemicals and doesn’t allow any of the bait to dry out as they’re placed outdoors.
Biggest downsides: We did have to monitor the traps to ensure success. Also, they aren’t designed to kill the queen, but this isn’t a major issue due to how effective they work over time.
The PIC Bait Stations can be used indoors or outdoors and uses four different food sources to kill ants within 24 hours.
Most notable upside: We found that for extreme infestations, the PIC Homeplus works quickly. We also noticed it doesn’t have a foul smell or mess, which contributes to their ease of use. In some cases, PIC can take as little as a few days to work if there’s not a significant number of ants present.
Biggest downsides: Although PIC works well on almost every type of ant some species aren’t affected as much. We also discovered that it may take up to a week to work fully which could be an issue if you need more immediate results.
Within hours, the Hot Shot bait begins killing ants with child-resistant stations. They’re designed to continue to work up to six months and are made for indoor and outdoor use.
Most notable upside: We were very impressed with how Hot Shot Ant Bait was designed with a durable material, which allows them to withstand the elements and prevent pets from getting to the bait. They work within 24 to 48 hours and are the perfect product if you need a quick solution. The bait also doesn’t spill out, which avoids unnecessary cleanup.
Biggest downsides: Our team noticed that some heavily infested areas may require more baits to be placed out, which means buying more Hot Shot, but it’s worth the cost due to how well these stations work.
Ant traps are not like mousetraps. An ant trap does not capture and immediately kill the pest on the spot. If anything, ant traps are better described as feeding stations. The only difference is that the food is bait and it contains poison as one of the ingredients.
Ant traps contain insecticides mixed with materials that attract worker ants looking for food. Ants are attracted to the bait and recruit other worker ants to the trap. Workers eat some of the bait themselves, but they will also transport quantities of it back to their colony where it is transferred mouth to mouth to other workers, larvae, and queens to kill the entire colony.
This is where the ant trap does most of its work. The ants in the colony will eat the food and slowly die from the poison.
However, ant traps do not work on all types of ants because each species behaves differently. One example is the worker carpenter “red” ants. They won’t bring the food back to the colony because the workers will just eat the bait for themselves and then die on their own, rendering the ant trap less effective.
Ants can become pests, especially when they infest your home. Even the cleanest of rooms and tabletops can sometimes attract these pests. And while there are many ways you can deal with an ant infestation, using ant bait traps is one of the easiest and economical.Ant bait traps can be the most effective way to rid your home of ants because the entire colony is destroyed when workers bring food back to the colony. This results in a permanent solution to ant problems compared to spot sprays or powders.
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