Pest Control in Toms River, NJ
Recently, I went on a service call for one of our long-time residential clients who resided in Toms River, NJ. She contacted Cowleys for a very good reason. She found ants crawling around in her bed! It’s bad enough to find ants in the kitchen, but to wake up at night with ants crawling over you is enough to make your skin crawl!
When I arrived, the homeowner greeted me with a warm smile and a sigh of relief. I asked her to lead the way to the location of the infesting ants and followed her to the bedroom. These ants weren’t the least bit shy. They were out in the open, and I saw them immediately. As I took a closer look, I identified these ants as pavement ants, one of the more common house-infesting ants we regularly deal with. Pavement ants are small ants, about 1/8 of an inch long, and are dark brown to black. Their common name comes from their nesting location. They are commonly found under pavement like sidewalks and driveways. The ants also have many other nesting sites. You’ll find them under stones, logs, boards, patio blocks, and other items lying on top of the ground. They have active colonies with many foraging ants looking for food and water to sustain the colony.
With ants, it is important to find the location of the nest and how they are gaining access into the home. I noticed this bedroom shared a wall against an exterior wall of the home. I knew the source of the ants was somewhere outside, it was just a matter of finding it. And I was determined. I went outside to look for their trail. Within a matter of minutes, I located the trail that was a highway of foraging ants. I followed the trail. I could not believe its length. It went almost 150 feet to a concrete patio slab behind the house.
The best course of action to treat this infestation was to apply a light liquid application to the ant trail as well as the underside of the siding where the ants were gaining entry. With this type of treatment, the ants will come in contact with the product and unknowingly carry it back to their colony where they begin sharing the product with each other or what entomologists call “the transfer effect.” How do they transfer the product? Ants regurgitate food to feed each other; they groom each other, and they even eat their dead. All of this activity rapidly spreads the product throughout the colony. It won’t take long for the colony to be eliminated and for the home to be free of ants.
The client was very happy. The ant problem had been distressing her, and she told me that I was her hero for the day. While I don’t know if I deserve hero status, I can say with certainty that the best part of my job is making people happy. There is nothing like resolving a problem that has caused someone a lot of stress and a lot of sleepless nights.