The first ants in the apartment: where they come from and what to do
A scout on the kitchen table is no accident — it's the start of a route.
A lone ant on the table is almost never there by chance. It is a scouting forager, and if it finds food, it will return to the nest, leaving a scent trail along the way. Within a day or two, a line of ants will follow that trail.
The first sensible step, therefore, is not to kill the scout, but to remove what attracted it and erase the trail. Simply wiping the route with water and detergent removes the chemical marker more effectively than any folk remedy.
What follows is the part that causes the most confusion. It is pointless to fight only the ants you can see: they account for a tiny fraction of the colony, while the nest and queen are usually hidden in a wall, beneath a skirting board, behind tiles, or even in a neighbouring property. Killing foragers does not reduce the colony's population.
That is why gels and baits, rather than sprays, are used in apartments. The logic is the opposite of what may seem intuitive: the bait must act with a delay rather than immediately, giving the ant time to carry it to the nest and feed the others. A product that kills on contact performs worse in this task, not better.
Patience is also important: results from a gel are usually visible on the third to fifth day, and activity may even increase during the first day. This is normal, not a sign that the product is unsuitable.
