Pest & Bed Bug Control, Attic Insulation, Wildlife Removal Comapny Serving Lakewood, NJ

During a summer service of a Home Protection Plan's property in Lakewood, NJ, we spotted a number of yellow jackets hovering around the flower pot that was attached to the mailbox. We decided to investigate closer and found a rather large yellow jackets nest at the bottom of the flower pot. 

With the owner's permission, we injected a knockdown dusting application into the nest. This will rapidly exterminate the yellow jackets. After some time passed, we removed all the soil and the nest, properly discarded both of them, and then applied a liquid residual to the area. This will eliminate any yellow jackets that return to the flower pot as well as prevent them from building another nest.

We were sent out to the property of a new customer in Lakewood, NJ to handle an ant issue inside the home. Once we began our inspection inside the home, we found a few ants trailing along the baseboard in one of the bedrooms. As soon as we opened up the closet we came across a large swarm of them! As we took a closer look, we noticed that the ants were actually coming from a small opening in the baseboard in the closet. Turns out that they were trailing from the outside of the home and entering the property through a small opening underneath the siding.

With the owner's permission, we treated the closet, the bedroom, the hallway, and the entire exterior of the home with a liquid residual. Afterward, we applied a granular bait to the walkway and grassy areas around the property. The worker ants are going to bring these treatments back to their colony to share them with their queen and the other ants in their nest. By doing this, they have no idea that they’re actually destroying their own colony! In a short amount of time, the ants will be exterminated.

As a pest control technician for Cowleys, one of my primary responsibilities is help to keep commercial establishments, especially restaurants and other food-related business, pest free. To do this we work hand-in-hand with the owner or manager and the kitchen staff to ensure that proper sanitation and hygiene protocols are followed. It’s a joint effort and good communication is essential. The objective is to prevent pest infestations from happening in the first place, but if they do happen, to treat them in their early stages so a minor issue does not turn into a major one. 

Recently, I was scheduled for a routine monthly service of one of our restaurants in Lakewood, NJ that has been a client of Cowleys now going on seven years. I’m proud to say that there have been no serious pest-related issues with this restaurant during that time. It’s not luck. The path to success in keeping an establishment pest- and vermin-free is vigilance and not letting down your guard for a second.

Although many think that the most important job of a pest control technician is applying product, it is actually the inspection process. A thorough inspection allows us to discover potential issues before they happen and find potential entry points or attractants that could lead to an infestation. Here, during my inspection underneath the cookline, I discovered an accumulation of food debris and grease under the equipment. This, of course, is a major attractant for all sorts of pests including mice, flies, and cockroaches. 

After documenting the problem on my work order and taking pictures, I immediately texted the pictures to the owner so that she was aware of the problem. The owner was quite appreciative that this was brought to her attention before matters became worse, and she assured me that  there would be an extensive clean-out of this area immediately. 

Recently, I was sent to a home in Lakewood, NJ to resolve a persistent bed bug infestation for an extremely frustrated homeowner. Another pest control service had made multiple attempts to eradicate the bugs, but to no avail. The homeowner decided to try another pest control service and contacted Cowleys. We have a number of pest control technicians, including myself, who have extensive experience with bed bug infestations.  

Bed bugs are challenging infestations to resolve because these bugs are masters of stealth. Between their blood meals, these insects can hide virtually anywhere and everywhere. The key to successfully resolving these infestations is a thorough, systematic, and meticulous inspection. You have to take your time and examine every gap or crack. 

Bed bugs typically don’t venture far for their next blood meal. Wherever these bugs are feeding on their human hosts, it is essential to examine every item within a 2 to 3 foot radius. Since the bugs like to feed on us when we are resting or sleeping, you must examine not only the mattress and box spring, but also everything nearby. I’ve uncovered bed bugs hiding in a variety of easily overlooked locations. For example, I’ve found these bugs in nightstand screw holes, behind electrical outlet plates, in picture frames, in the nooks and crannies of bed frames, and even inside a clock radio! Here, the prior company failed to look underneath the screw tops to the four bed posts. Sure enough, when I unscrewed each screw top to the bed post, I discovered a large number of bed bug eggs just waiting to hatch and adult bed bugs patiently waiting for their next blood feeding.  

If a customer is being bitten by bed bugs, they must be hiding somewhere. The pest control technician must be willing to put on his detective cap and be persistent. You can’t give up. Once their harborage areas are located, “the jig is up” for these bugs. Here, I took out my hepa-vac and carefully vacuumed up the bed bugs and their eggs. I completed my inspection and could not find any other bed bug activity. Out of an abundance of caution, I also performed a thorough crack and crevice treatment to all possible harborage areas.  

I’ll be returning for a two-week follow-up to re-inspect and apply additional treatments as necessary. With bed bugs, we consider the job done when our re-inspection shows no more activity and the homeowner reports no more bites, no more sightings, and no more signs of bed bugs like tiny specks of blood or fecal stains on the sheets. 

A commercial property owner in Lakewood, NJ had plumbing and gas lines installed into the building and areas around the pipes were not sealed. Often, there are gaps around pipes large enough for mice to enter, but these gaps were large enough for curious squirrels that were more than happy to explore new territory. With any wildlife problem, you have to do more than just resolve the current infestation. It is critical to do the follow-up preventive exclusion work where the technician locates and seals any actual or potential access points to prevent a re-infestation. 

Cowleys technicians not only excluded all of the gaps around the pipes, but also fabricated boxes to fit over the pipes in order to keep squirrels from re-accessing the area.