Top pick
These stations are effective, easy to use, widely available, relatively safe, and nearly unanimously recommended by homeowners. If they don’t work, call a pro.
I’m not alone: Multiple Wirecutter colleagues told me that they had similar successes with these ant baits. As Doug Mahoney writes in our guide to the best ant killer, “Terro’s T300 Liquid Ant Baits are easily the best we’ve used.”
Terro T300 Liquid Ant Baits are so effective because they’re filled with a slow-acting poison that ants “seem to find irresistible,” as Doug writes. Inside each plastic bait station is a mixture of a sweet liquid, which attracts the ants, and borax (a chemical compound used in some laundry detergents and cleaning products), which is poisonous to ants. The ants, lured by the sweet syrup, collect the mixture and bring it back to the colony where it’s shared, effectively eliminating the insects at the source.
The bait is designed to attract ants and slowly kill them, so don’t panic when you start seeing more ants. Yes, you will see more ants. In my case, as soon as the ants discovered a station, it seemed to set off a feeding frenzy that distracted them from whatever they initially discovered to feed on in my home. But once the ants take the bait back to the colony, they start to die off.
In my experience, it only took a few weeks to end the multiroom infestation, with each station receiving about two to three days of heavy traffic before the ants tapered off. First, the ants receded from our bedroom, and then our respective office spaces, and finally, the living room. I’m happy to report they never made it to the kitchen. Within three weeks, all of the ants were gone, and a year later, they have yet to return.
The stations are most effective when placed near the ants’ trails, where they’ll be likely to find them. Ants use pheromone trails to communicate the location of a food source to each other, so the placement of the bait stations can make all the difference. For example, I put two stations in my office, but one went virtually untouched because it wasn’t close to an established trail. In my experience, it was easy to identify the trails because the ants were marching in a clear line.
However, if you have trouble attracting ants to the bait stations, my colleague Kaitlin Mahar, who used Terro’s baits to combat a particularly horrific infestation, offered a simple solution. “We’d just pour a small drop [of the bait] in front of the trap’s entrance to lure them in,” she explained.
The Terro stations I chose are transparent, which makes it easy to see whether or not the ants are actually taking the bait. Frankly, I also found it to be a little gross, because you can see them congregating en masse as they collect the toxic syrup, and in some cases, even drowning in it. However, it is very reassuring to know that they’re finding it and taking it back to the colony. Terro also sells opaque bait stations, which cut down on the yuck factor, but Doug’s testing found that they’re much harder to monitor.
Despite their demonstrated effectiveness, these traps aren’t perfect. One downside is that the stations (about the size of a Bic lighter) can be messy and prone to spillage because of their long shape and short profile (necessary for the ants to access and escape). When spilled, the syrupy bait is very sticky, like honey. I had success cleaning up a few errant drops on my hardwood and tile floors with dish soap and some water, but I imagine it’d be much more difficult to get out of carpet or rugs.
The stations can also be tricky to open cleanly, which is a problem my colleague Christine Ryan has also run into when using Terro T300 baits. Each station has a top that you can twist to break off, but I recommend cutting it with scissors to avoid accidentally spilling the sticky liquid and to create an opening that’s easier for ants to climb into, which Doug also recommends in the guide.
I don’t have kids or pets, so I wasn’t concerned about placing these stations out of the reach of curious hands or paws. However, in the guide, Doug notes that borax, the active ingredient in Terro T300 baits, is relatively safe, which is one of the reasons they’re our top pick. Editor Signe Brewster says she uses them about every other year with great success in the home she shares with kids and pets. “I like that they’re low profile and easy to slip under a shelf so neither cat nor kids can mess with them,” she said.
Ants aren’t an unusual household pest. “Ant workers that are outside the nest are looking for food,” explained Noa Pinter-Wollman, a professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Los Angeles, in an email interview. “Leaving food leftovers, having an accessible trash can, or an open cereal box on the counter, can attract ants.”
However, as Doug said in our guide to the best ant killer, “if you try to kill household ants the wrong way, you can actually split the colony—and make the problem worse.” The Terro T300 baits are an effective way to address the issue at the source.
For example, writer Joel Santo Domingo used them indoors in addition to Terro’s T1812 outdoor baits to tackle an infestation from multiple fronts. (Terro recently redesigned their outdoor baits, and the new version is T1813.) “They kept the recurring ant colonies out of the house until we had a pro come over and seal the openings around our foundation,” he said. “No intrusions since then.”
Did I ever imagine I’d be so excited to recommend ant baits? No, but that’s homeownership for you. And you better believe I’m stocked up and ready for a potential invasion this summer.
This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Maxine Builder.
