Kāpiti Coast community wages war on ants, again

1:42 pm on 7 October 2018

A Kāpiti Coast community has started to wage yet another war against ants in the area.

Jenny Scott holds a trap with ants.

Jenny Scott holds a trap with ants. Photo: RNZ / Jonathan Mitchell

Argentine Ants have been plaguing residents in Raumati for a couple of years, but reached a peak during the warm weather of last summer.

A member of the Raumati South Residents' Association Jenny Scott said she had been working to get rid of the ants, as they got so bad she did not enjoy living in the township anymore.

She has sent out hundreds of emails and put together bait stations for people to take home.

Everyone needed to bait the ants to make sure the eradication campaign worked, she said.

"It only takes one colony of ants to be missed and they just multiply and multiply and multiply so quickly that the re-infestation starts all over again. So it's really got to be a community effort."

A trial of baiting ants at 30 households was successful, but the ants are coming back, she said.