WTF! Ants are in my cable modem!

August 8, 2007 4:41 PM

OMFGFilter: I was cleaning my living room / bedroom / office and underneath my side-laying cable modem I found HORDES of ants swarming around pale little crumbs. Did I just find a nest?

Holy hell. My modem was only there for a couple days...
Was that eggs? Was a vacuum enough to kill the buggers and thier offspring? I knocked em out of the modem, but there's still ants crawling everywhere!

What the hell, I thought we had technology to triumph over nature, not serve as warm spots to breed!

posted by emptyinside to grab bag (13 comments total)

Were they picking up the crumbs and moving them somewhere warm? Ant eggs look kinda like uncooked white rice, and they'll protect them at all costs.*

*Not any kind of expert on ants.
posted by Solomon at 4:49 PM on August 8, 2007

Photos?
posted by cgc373 at 4:54 PM on August 8, 2007

windex will kill them. also, if you are concerned about them still being there, terro traps are the best things ever.
posted by Medieval Maven at 4:54 PM on August 8, 2007

Agree with Medieval Maven. Terro bait is the best. Leave it there until the ants stop appearing.
posted by JayRwv at 4:56 PM on August 8, 2007

If it has been raining a lot where you are, it's possible that they came inside when their nest flooded. If there's not a lot of food around, they will probably leave once it gets dry outside.

If it hasn't been raining a lot where you are, that's weird.
posted by jefeweiss at 5:28 PM on August 8, 2007

It hasn't been raining at all. It's hot, humid summertime here in Portland, OR. Taro sucks nuts. I hate seeing the ants all lined up drinking at the poison pool. They just go off, tell their friends, and have drunken lesbian ant sex.

I was too freaked out to take a photo, I should have! I bet they were eggs. I should empty my vacuum bag....

thx for the responses
posted by emptyinside at 6:08 PM on August 8, 2007

That stuff sounds like frass.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:14 PM on August 8, 2007

In areas where we can, we kill ants by dumping boiling water on them.
posted by IndigoRain at 8:17 PM on August 8, 2007

Are you sure they were ants? Termites look like ants, too ... just saying ...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:19 PM on August 8, 2007

Aaaaahhhhh!!!! This sucks. Flashbacks... Spray the modem. Ants like to live in electronics.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 10:55 PM on August 8, 2007

Down here in Florida we have non-wood eating Carpenter Ants. They're big, they're black and they LOVE electronics.
Modems, cordless phones, wall sockets.
I don't know if it's the warmth or what.
And yes, if it's been raining a lot where you are, then they will run inside your house.
Oh, and there is also a winged variety of the above.
posted by willmize at 1:43 AM on August 9, 2007

I used to live in Florida and acknowledge willmize's claim that Southern insects are just plain tougher, nastier insects than anywhere else in the country.

I remember my dad having to throw away a giant hand-made maple cabinet he constructed for his hand-made amplifier (he was a hi-fi audio nut as a youngin'). I was too young to understand, I just knew that it had "flying ants" (the carpenter ants referred to above) that would emerge every so often. I thought my dad would just spray some Raid on it and be done with it, but it was just way too far gone at that point.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:23 AM on August 9, 2007

I would get a can of Raid Max and spray all over. I like the Max kind because it has a little straw-thingie that you can stick down into cracks and really get 'em.
posted by radioamy at 9:32 AM on August 9, 2007