Ants dare to invade pest control technician's home - Ant control & removal in Neptune, NJ
Challenge
This particular pest infestation involved a home in Neptune. However, for this infestation I did not need to be dispatched to an address. This infestation took place right at my own house! Yes, even pest control technicians can find themselves with a pest infestation. Of course, I suspect that these insects would have chosen another home if they knew who they were dealing with.
After a hard day at work, I was sitting by my newly installed koi pond right by my deck, and saw that ants were crawling around my bench — MY bench — where I like to sit. Whenever I find ants or other pests as a homeowner, my reaction is the same as anyone else. I want them gone, and gone soon. Sitting by my koi pond after a hard day at work is my private time for peace and relaxation, and I don’t want to be interrupted by anyone, let alone crawling insects. Unfortunately, for these ants, they messed with the wrong guy!
A little bit about ants. Ants are social insects that live and breed in nests. Worker ants are constantly foraging for food and water, and you’ll see them marching along their scent-marked trails. Whenever I’m inspecting a home for ants, I am on the lookout for these trails because they allow me to trace their direction and see where they are coming from. Often, the first signs of an ant problem are on the outside of the home. You’ll often see them on your deck or patio, or around your windowsills. If you see them, it’s easy to say they’re outside of the house and not bothering anyone, so just leave them be. The problem is that, if the infestation is not resolved, the ant colony will keep growing and growing, and there will be more and more foraging ants looking for food and water. If the ants are already hovering nearby your home, there is very a high likelihood that they won’t be content staying outside. They will start invading your home, finding their way in through the smallest cracks and crevices. Given the size of ants, it is virtually impossible to physically exclude them from your home, and your home simply has too many irresistible “goodies” to ignore — whether its water in your bathroom or food crumbs or the pet food bowl in the kitchen. Ants, which are omnivorous and they’ll feed on almost anything, will treat your home as an unlimited buffet that is open day and night.
A single colony, which can have multiple queens, can easily develop into several thousand ants. Whenever you see foraging ants, it is likely just the “tip of the iceberg” and the infestation is much larger than what it appears. The best time is to take care of an ant problem is as soon as you recognize that you have one — before the colony grows any larger, and preferably, before they start to enter your home.
Solution
Pest control technicians have many tools in their arsenal to treat ants. The particular treatment depends on the type of ant, the location of the infestation (inside or outside), and the size of the infestation. Although we commonly use a liquid treatment, it’s not the only tool at our disposal. My house is a good example of a spot treatment using ant gel baits. I placed the baits right in their trails so they could not be missed. Pest control technicians use the behavior of insects against them. Sure enough, in less than a New York minute, there were dozens of ants gathering the bait.
With social insects like ants, it is critical to kill the colony and the reproducing queens. Just killing isolated foraging ants, even though it feels good, is ineffective. Foraging ants are expendable. There are always hundreds, if not thousands, more where they came from. Instead, we want these foraging ants to carry this bait back to the colony where it will be spread among everyone and consumed by all of the ants that you don’t see. Soon, the entire colony will be knocked out. Of course, I treat my Cowleys' customers infestations the exact same way that I treat an infestation in my own home. With my customers, I set up a follow-up appointment to reinspect and assess the effectiveness of the treatment. If necessary, I’ll re-treat certain areas, and stay on the job until the pest infestation is gone for good.
