The last month I've been fighting off these tiny little ant-like bugs. They are much smaller and less elongated than ants, and they don't travel in lines like ants do. They are attracted to food. I first saw them in my cat's dry food bowl, but they are also showing up on the kitchen counter and in some cabinets where I store food. Today, I found a whole bunch of them in my cats' water bowl.

They are so tiny, I can barely get a good look at them, and when I touch them, they almost disintegrate.

I've put out ant bait traps with no improvement.

What are they and how do I get rid of them?! I've never had any bugs like this in the house.

bait, but some bait is definitely better than others. I always had the best luck with squeezing the gel out of a tube vs the trap looking devices. And you can visually see them go after it. Keep everything else as clean/dry as possible in the area while it is set out.

I've used a penetrating fogger and had excellent results

Also agree on the Terro. And my experience, expect it to look worse for a day or so after you set the baits out. They love that sugary liquid and will swarm before taking it back to their colony.

Terro is good. I usually bait with the liquid gel inside where I see them and then put one of the outdoor liquid baits outside of where I see them too.

Terro wiped them out in days at my house when I put them in their path of travel.

Thanks for all the input. After finding them in the water bowl and posting, the amount of ants has tapered off. But, I am going to get some Terro this weekend, since this is probably only a temporary reprieve.

So I put out the Terro last weekend and the little ants have been gone.

However, this morning, in the time between when I fed the cats and got back from the gym, there food and water was overrun with the larger "traditional" ants.

It seems like the Terro bait attracted them, but there were so many it overwhelmed the trap, and they bypassed it for the food bowl. There were way more of these ants than there ever were of the tiny ones.

I cleaned it up, sprayed under the door trim where I think they are coming in, and put out fresh bait.

Traditional ants/fire ants....even if you see them indoors think the strategy is to nuke the outside. Entries and probably border all along the house (and any mounds obviously).

Run the mound over with a lawnmower then spray the remains with bifen.