Pests We Treat - Ants Found in the Crawl Space in Spring Lake, NJ

I was sent by Cowleys to one of our residential customers in Spring Lake, NJ who was dealing with a ongoing ant issue. To help focus my inspection and treatment plan, when I arrived at the house, I questioned the homeowners to get a better understanding of the infestation —  when the problem was first noticed, where ants were being seen, and the volume of ants (a few isolated foraging ants or an army of them). 

Based on the homeowner’s observations, the problem appeared to be isolated to the kitchen pantry. None of this was too surprising. Ants are in your home for one reason — to forage for food and water. Most types of ants prefer sweets, carbohydrates, and proteins, all of which are commonly found in pantries. 

Of course, I did not limit my inspection to just this area of the home. One thing that I have learned over the years, is that during an inspection, no stone can be left unturned. Ants are social insects that live in a queen-worker caste system. There is a hidden nest somewhere that the queen is using to pump out more and more worked ants to expand the colony. To successfully and permanently resolve an ant infestation, the key is finding the nest to eliminate the colony. You can’t just kill the expendable foraging ants — you have to kill the source of all the trouble! 

In most situations, a persistent pest control technician will be able to follow the trailing ants back to the nest. Ants leave a pheromone trail so it is easy for them to go back and forth from the nest to the food source. These trails also happen to give us a clear picture of their movement in a home and how we can develop a treatment plan that will most effectively get rid of the infestation. 

With this particular infestation, I found odorous house ants going into a crack in the floor by the door frame. Their peculiar name is because they will emit a pretty rancid odor when crushed. I followed the ant trail into the crawl space, I located several trails coming up the foundation from the french drain. 

Now that I exposed their route into the home, it was time to treat and get rid of this colony. Using all the tools at my disposal, I heavily baited the ant trails with a liquid ant bait. Next, I applied a non-repellent application in the cracks and crevices in the kitchen and pantry areas, followed by a exterior perimeter treatment with another non-repellent insecticide. Non-repellent products, where the ant is unaware that they are even being exposed to a lethal product, is excellent for treating insect trails and nests. Their delayed activity helps to maximize the number of insects that come into contact with the product and improve colony control. Because the insects don’t avoid the treatment, they will allow it to not only affect them, but they’ll unknowingly carry it back to the nest to affect other ants in the colony, including the reproducing queen. These products use the ants’ social behavior and turn it against them. Ants function as a unit, not as individuals. They depend on each other for their survival. They groom and feed each ofter. When doing their instinctive activities, the ants will transfer the product to one other. It does not take long for the colony to be destroyed.

I took a video of what I observed in the crawlspace in order to show the homeowners the busy ant activity that was taking place right under their noses in the crawl space. Unfortunately, crawl spaces are often a hidden trouble spot for many problems in a home including moisture, mold, wildlife, and insects. The homeowners were pleased that I was able to find the nest and put an end to the unwanted ants that had invaded their home.