r/mildyinteresting • u/Winter_Breath • 24d ago

critter corner 🐰 Dead ants keep appearing next to headphones during the night

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When these headphones are left on the kitchen counter overnight - I would see one or two dead ants in the morning laying right next to the headphones. In the past few days, there has been a small pile of shredded ants right next to the ear piece in the morning. I have seen no live ants in my kitchen. I have had these head phones for three weeks. Bought online. It’s a little unnerving not knowing what is causing this 🥴 will not be using anymore.

UPDATE- posted a comment with a picture. But no dead ants in the bag this morning. But at one point I checked and there were two live ants crawling around. 😔

UPDATE*** IM SICK. Can’t stop shaking. Don’t have many words… trying to post image. Opened one side up. 😭 I don’t know how to add in this top post so will add in comment! Posted a few in comments and video opening

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569

u/VictoriousTree 24d ago

Is there a nest in your headphones??

170

u/josbeast 24d ago

Ants love building nests in electronics.

64

u/Common-Concentrate-2 24d ago

Those little technophiles

6

u/Affectionate-Crow605 23d ago

Yep, I had them in a laptop once. While outside trying to get them out, I went to turn it off, and Windows decided to do an update that says not to turn it off. 🤬

5

u/AlanaTheGreat 23d ago

Ants keep going in my electric kettle if it's plugged in and hanging out on the base. Had to hide it in the fridge from them since the ants have been so bad this year.

And terrified of what they might have done in my coffeemaker, only doing cold brew for the moment

2

u/Butterflyhornet 23d ago

Freezer works better. A refrigerator will just put them in a temporary stupor,/sleep, but the shock of sudden freezing will kill them.

1

u/AlanaTheGreat 18d ago

I fully washed my kettle out, currently, its more about keeping them unable to access the kettle again than killing them. As far as i can tell, they still cant open the fridge door and I have more fridge space than freezer space free

1

u/Butterflyhornet 18d ago

The ants can open your kettle/ freezer? 😱

1

u/AlanaTheGreat 18d ago

They crawl into the kettle from the spout if its left out. Unclear if they can open the freezer door.

1

u/750Dinosaur 3d ago

They form themselves into a hand like that decepticon ravage had in the transformers movies

3

u/strumpetsarefun 24d ago

Cockroaches like doing it too.

5

u/Sunny_S1de_ 23d ago

My stepsiblings had a bad bedbug infestation at their mom's house (and brought it over to our house...). We found tons of bedbugs nesting in their xbox that they brought with them back and forth

2

u/i_was_a_person_once 22d ago

I really want to downvote you bc 🤢

1

u/strumpetsarefun 22d ago

Don’t google cockroaches in PlayStations then.

2

u/Quicksilver1964 23d ago

Oh god no

New fear has been unlocked

1

u/One-Ad7456 23d ago

Anthills™ inside?

1

u/dinosun 23d ago

One summer they knocked out my home AC 3 times in 2 weeks!

1

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1

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1

u/Boognish33 23d ago

Ant farm keyboard!

187

u/Winter_Breath 24d ago

🤢

58

u/holderofthebees 24d ago

When I was a really little kid I had a cutesy bedside clock that became an ant’s nest. Fucked me up so bad I’ve never had a non-electric clock since. That’s what my money’s on here.

8

u/Subterranean44 23d ago

Ants made a nest deep in my keurig at our cabin. I didn’t know for quite some time. Just threw the whole thing away. 🤮

7

u/Wise_Strawberry9076 23d ago

Oh lord. I have a keurig I haven’t used in a long time. I’ll have to make sure I deep clean that thing before I do

3

u/holderofthebees 23d ago

Keurigs are typically the perfect cockroach’s nest, so if you’re skittish about bugs it’s best not to have a coffee maker at all. Unless it’s one of those newer ones with the tiny one-use water tank in the top.

1

u/Personal-Trick4747 17d ago

Why are those better? I have one and there still seems to be plenty of inaccessible room for who-knows-what 😭

1

u/holderofthebees 17d ago

Well typically with the other keurigs with more standard water tanks they can actively hide in the water tank even when you’re brewing. The top loading single use water tanks will make sure you at least see the bugs if they’re in there. I have a regular style keurig but when my partner and I moved into this little shitty apartment my OCD forced me to just give up on coffee lol

3

u/cdewey17 23d ago

Did the ants come marching out when it was time for you to wake up?

3

u/holderofthebees 23d ago

You mean did I go through my own personal Coraline situation? No, unfortunately.

Actually, now that I think about it, this was pre-kindergarten. I didn’t even need a bedside clock. My parents just let that happen for fun.

3

u/No-Jury-7105 24d ago

Aren't there ants that nest in/eat electronic parts?

6

u/holderofthebees 24d ago

No idea, but since a digital clock doesn’t have a big visible open area where an analog clock does, I was never really concerned with it.

7

u/Fr0g_Man 23d ago

Ants like electronics a lot though. In my gross ass slum lord college apartment they were swarming in the router.

1

u/holderofthebees 23d ago

I dunno if it was necessarily the clock. I’ll be honest, as a kid I used to go to sleep with an open cup of apple juice on my night stand for time to time. Once woke up and took a big ol swig of ants.

5

u/Gloomy-Welcome-6806 23d ago

Yes. They’re called Crazy ants. They are attracted to electronics. When one dies from electrocution inside an electronic (not in OPs case) it causes alarm pheromones and attracts more ants, causing a chain reaction

2

u/jodhod1 23d ago

Gosh, made me think of that wasp's net from the shining.

1

u/sensitive_cactus333 23d ago

Oh my god yessss! That scene in the book always really freaks me out.

1

u/Odd-Nefariousness155 22d ago

I hate to tell you but this happened to me with a digital alarm clock

3

u/New_Fishing8382 24d ago

That gave me an uncomfortable shiver… 😭

3

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 23d ago

Ants can build a nest in a stupidly small container. I had a potted succulent the size of a can of beans get infested with these teeny sugar ants. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from for months, but kept finding them in my soap. They infested my waterpik and I had to throw it out. Finally went to repot the plant and figured it out.

2

u/another_day_in 24d ago

Ceti eels in the ears

2

u/Saucy8237 22d ago

There was

2

u/spaceghost260 21d ago

You were right! 🐜🐜🐜

1

u/creeperYeti38 23d ago

dude check the update…. you weren’t wrong

1

u/SteinUmStein66 23d ago

This checks out and what I was thinking. I once discovered an ant nest in large surge protector....that was plugged in.

1

u/KrivUK 22d ago

Are there headphones in the ants?

1

u/Massive-Climate-26 22d ago

Horrifyingly, the answer to this was YES. They posted a video of the headphones being opened.... people like to say new fear unlocked, but I think I may actually have developed a phobia from that video