Ants eating the bait off mouse and rat traps
Ants are completely taking over and cleaning the peanut butter or bait off rodent traps before any target pests can find it. Spraying the surrounding area with bug spray fails to stop them, leaving traps useless and preventing homeowners from catching the mice and rats.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Sprinkling Niban bait outside the station
- 2Putting the trap on a shallow tray of water
- 3Spraying home defense around the trap
- 4trying alternative trapping or baiting methods
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Both times I’ve put out the rat trap, the ants have completely taken over the bait, even after I sprayed the entire area around it throughly with bug spray.”source ↗
“every single mouse and rat trap being completely cleaned of the peanut butter, so I'm wondering if it's ants as I get ants on the front step.”source ↗