Long before non repellants came along the pest control industry futilely tried to bait our ant problems into submission. A box of cut up drinking straws was standard issue on any bug truck. We charged hundreds of dollars to put drippy (sometimes home made) sweet baits in them but we’d watch as the pharaoh ants simply got fat and split off in different directions. Baiting carpenter ants was and still is almost impossible and even with the advent of pharoid, an IGR for ants, we really were left with only a few options. Dusting voids and treating trails was the mainstay but to be successful, I mean really triumphant, you had to be great at finding nests.
Well needless to say, you could be the greatest inspector in the world (2nd to me of course) but sometimes it is literally impossible to find or access the colony. Either it’s deep in the bowels of the earth, in a tall tree top or tucked away in an adjacent property you can’t get permission to inspect. I have found whole colonies in some of the strangest places -a box of envelopes-in refrigerator door moulding-under insulation in the middle of an attic-under carpets-mailboxes-tree branches-on a boat-etc.etc.etc. But I know I’ve missed way more than I’ve ever found. In any case, the odds were stacked against positive ant control for years but in recent times, we’ve have tilted the game to our favor.
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