In general bait is better.
From what I've read, you want the ants, termites or what have you to bring it back to the colony and kill the queen. Once the queen is gone the colony dies.
My suggestion since your disturbing then is to put a barrier around the house with liquid or dry granuals and put bait traps out as well. I have used liquid and granuals on my lawn for ticks but IMO the liquid doesn't last too long.
I have used Ortho granual products and it seems OK.
I found a few ants in my house in my family room last year and bought Raid ant traps, I put it in the basement on the ledger board around where I saw them and I haven't seen others in the house since. What I found interesting about termites is the colony can be a few hundred feet away so local killing just kills a select few, this might be the same for ants.