Pests We Treat - Ants Helping Themselves to Kitchen Leftovers in Eatontown, NJ

Recently, I went out on a routine service call to one of our commercial clients, a senior living community, in Eatontown, NJ for which we service the common areas as well as the individual units of the residents. Upon arrival, the property manager told me that a resident was having an ant issue in her kitchen, and I jumped right on it! Sure enough, as soon as I began my inspection of her kitchen, there were ants a-plenty.  I found pavement ants trailing along the baseboards and in the cracks and edges of the linoleum tile. Pavement ants are small ants, only about 1/8 of an inch long, and are usually dark brown to black in color. How did they get their name? From their preferred nesting locations. These ants often nest under sidewalks, driveways, and concrete slabs. Pavement ants will feed on a wide variety of food, everything from sugar, fruits, syrups, and small seeds to grease and even other dead insects. Suffice it to say, they're not really picky eaters. 

Now that I had identified the type of ant and where they were foraging, the next step was to find how they were gaining access to her kitchen and the general location of their colony. The queen will send out scouts to seek out food and water for the colony. Once the scouts find food or water, they lay down a pheromone scent that attracts even more ants. Following their pheromone trail, I  discovered that the ants were gaining access through a tiny hole underneath the kitchen window, near the dining room table. 

I applied a non-repellant liquid application to their entry point, and along the base of the exterior property. Non-repellant applications are undetectable to the ants, so when they come in contact with it,  they return to the colony and share it with other ants, including the reproductive queen. The application works quickly, and soon, the ant population will be completely gone.

I advised the resident to ask their community association to repair the hole underneath the kitchen window to help prevent any future infestations.