The Surest Way to Get Rid of Ants from Your Electronics

Last week, I was faced with a very strange dilemma when I discovered that my modem had been infested with ants. Thankfully, I caught it just in time before the little critters could do more damage. Silly me thought these were just pesky ants that I could huff and puff until they disappear. I left my router only to find it later being attacked by ants AGAIN! I did this several times without success.

So I went to the internet and scoured for answers. I learned about a particular species of ants, which are relatively new, to be attracted to electromagnetic heat causing them to swarm inside electronic devices. I tried to look for a solution to this problem but I found no real good answer. Just endless pun jokes about debugging my electronics. I can't blame people though. Such stupidity can be expected on the internet.

I saw one solution which was about setting up a moat for ants which supposedly triggers their instinct to leave. The only problem is, this doesn't work for electronic devices that always need to be plugged, like my router. Ants can access the outlet and simply use the wire as a bridge towards the device.

I was beginning to get frustrated. Several debugging jokes later, I was ready to settle for the old-time chalk solution but even I wasn't convinced that it works. It wasn't until I found another solution which was petroleum jelly. Yes! Petroleum jelly applied around part of the wire. You only need an inch of the wire covered in a dollop of petroleum jelly, enough to discourage the ant from crossing further.

After setting up my moat, I placed petroleum jelly around the wire which I made sure would not be in any contact with surface that could be accessed by ants. This way, if they do attempt to cross, they see the petroleum jelly blocking their way and it's either they retreat (for approaching ants) or they stay stuck in the router, realize there's no escape, and they die a slow death (for stuck ants).

The strategy worked; several dead ants were floating in the bowl the day after. I plan on keeping it this way for the rest of my internet-using days. Darn ants!

Having trouble getting rid of ants from your electronic device? Let me know if this helped! If not, let's find a workaround.