I think you are a person who is frustrated that ants have get into your headphones, and finding a way to remove ants from your headphones at the same time. However, can you remove ants from your headphones? If yes, how can you do that?
If any sort of ants manage to get into your headphones, you can mainly remove ants from your headphones by disassembling it, letting the headphones on high temperatures, or following air-trapping techniques on headphones.
If you really want to remove ants from your headphones, most of the time you need to keep them alive. Because if they die inside the headphone there isn’t any way to get them out without disassembling it.
Why are ants attracted to headphones?
As you and me have seen pretty obviously, ants are much attracted to foods and drinks, especially for the ones that contain sugar.
But it’s kind of weird to believe or say that ants are attracted to headphones. So, I did some research to find out why are ants attracted to headphones. Here is what I could come up with.
1. Electro-magnetic field of headphones
All kinds of speakers and headphones are made with magnets. Do you know that magnetic fields can impact the activities and movements of ants?
Ants use the earth’s electromagnetic waves to identify their routes.
But sometimes they get misled by the magnetic fields of external sources. For instance, you can consider ‘Crazy ants’ that have done serious damage to electric devices as an invasive pest on US.
2. Sweat and dirt on headphones
If you are somebody who often does jogging or exercises in a chilling vibe while listening to music, you might get into this sort of trouble.
Usually, many people do not care about cleaning their headphones. On the other hand, ants are attracted to materials that include sweat and dirt.
That’s the reason why ants bite through sweaty clothes. Moreover, the ear wax that holds on earbuds can work on the favor of ants.
Therefore, if you really want to remove ants from your headphones you need to keep this good habit of cleaning your headphones.
3. Ease of accessing the interior from entry holes
This is another possible reason why ants are attracted to headphones.
Ants are a genius piece of insects and they are very conscious about the place they are living in.
So, if they encounter the entry holes of a headphone that is distinguished in a particular place for a few days, they may find it as a fine place to build a nest.
Because all they need is a safe place that reaches air to breathe. As a headphone perfectly fulfill their favorations, they might live in headphones.
4. Food particles on the wire
If you are used to watching films or listening to music using headphones, you might eating some snacks at the same time as a habit.
In the process, there might be food particles left out in the wire of the headphones.
Because of the regarding issue, ants can be attracted to your headphones. They are coming with the intention of eating the food particles in the headphone.
But if they hover there for longer some of them can get into your headphone and stuck on it.
5. To chew the wiring
Usually, headphones come with a rubber-covered wire. Some sort of ants are attracted to electronic devices because of the magnetic field effect.
When they reach the headphones, once they find that the rubber cover is chewable, they start chewing it.
Many ant species can not eat the wire. But they are doing enough damage to cause shortages in your headphone.
Methods to remove ants from your headphones
Now we are getting to the best part of this article, and it is about how to remove ants from your headphones.
The first thing to remember is, that it is much easier for you to remove ants if you keep the ants alive inside the headphones.
1. Try to blast the music
You might feel that this is a quite obvious answer, or you may have already tried this one.
However, scientifically this can work because ants have a small frequency range of 1KHz. Therefore music above that range can probably make them feel uncomfortable.
2. Expose the headphone to the sunlight
This is another method you can try to remove ants from your headphones since ants do not likely to live in hot surfaces for longer.
I have got a cool idea from a guy on a forum. It is about trying the greenhouse effect to remove ants.
Here’s what you should do.
Put the headphone inside a glass jar and close the top of it from a plastic cover. Then leave it in the sun.
Since the jar keeps getting hot, ants will try to get out of your headphone. This method is more safe for your headphone interior.
3. Trap the air around the headphone
Ants are also breathing oxygen even they do not use their lungs in the process. Cutting off the oxygen can make ants remove themselves from the headphone or die inside it.
You can try this technique from a zip bag. But it’s always better if you have a bag that used for vacuum packing.
Put your headphone in to a large zip bag or vacuum bag, and try to pull off the air from your hand from rubbing the surface of the cover.
Then close the zip and wait to see if ants come out.
Another fact I found about this tactic is pumping Nitrogen. It will make ants pretty harder to breathe.
4. Disassemble your headphone
This will be the last option for you to go with if you want to remove ants from your headphones, and nothing of the above methods are working.
The reason I didn’t force you to do this in the beginning, especially if you aren’t a technical or fix guy, you may get in trouble with fixing your headphone again.
But no matter, this video will help you to disassemble your headphone.
Once you open up your headphone, you might be able to find an ant colony with eggs and larvae inside it. Give it a full cleanup and check whether the headphone is working.