Exterminators in Rumson, NJ

Challenge

Recently, I went on a service call for a residential client in Rumson, NJ, who was having an issue with large black ants entering their home. Whenever possible, before starting my inspection, I always try to speak with homeowners first to get as much information as I can about whatever rodent, pest or wildlife issue they are dealing with. This preliminary information helps me identify the problem, target my inspection, and find the best solution. Here, the clients told me that they saw ants in the bedroom of their youngest son, so that is where I started. 

During my inspection of the room, I’ve found quite a few ants trailing around near the baseboard. Taking a closer look, I identified the ants as carpenter ants. Carpenter ants are territorial, and they can and do bite, especially threatened. Their jaws are powerful enough to chew into wood, so for them, piercing skin is not an issue. They leave sizeable bite marks and inject formic acid into the skin, the same acid in bee stings. Their bite feels like a sharp pinch.

As their name implies, carpenter ants are wood-destroying insects. Unlike termites, they do not actually eat the wood. Instead, their damage is from burrowing galleries into the wood to make room for their growing colony. While carpenter ants don’t cause as much structural damage as termites, if left untreated, over a period of years, the accumulated damage can be extensive. Once a carpenter ant colony is established, they do not simply “go away.” The colony will continue to expand as long as food and moisture are present. And for these tenacious ants, those items are usually quite easy to find inside homes. 

Solution

The only long-term solution to a carpenter ant infestation problem is removing or destroying the colony. You must kill the reproducing queen. Otherwise, the expendable foraging ants will keep on coming. In order to find the nest, I watched the ants and trailed them to find their entryway. It takes patience. After about 10 minutes of concentrated watching, I figured out where they were coming from: underneath the baseboard in that room. When ants forage for food, they leave behind a pheromone trail (scent trail) that leads them back to the nest. On the return trip, the ants lay down another layer of pheromones to create a trail with an even stronger scent for other ants in the colony to use.

First, I treated all the cracks, crevices, and baseboards in the room with a light liquid application, and then treated the basement and exterior perimeter of the home as well. With ant infestations, it is most effective to treat both the interior and exterior. The more ants that come into contact with the application, the better. The product does not immediately kill the ants. Instead, it is designed to keep the ants alive long enough for them to carry the application back to their colony and share it with other members. Like a virus, the product passes from ant to ant. In a short amount of time, the ant colony will be completely eliminated, and these homeowners and their children will no longer have to deal with any more disturbing ant sightings.