Odorous house ants invade Tinton Falls, NJ home

Here I am in Tinton Falls, NJ helping a homeowner whose home was invaded by a small army of ants. During my inspection, I quickly determined that she was dealing with odorous house ants, otherwise known as stink ants. Their name isn’t meant to be an insult. Rather, the name simply describes them. If ants happen to get crushed, you’ll know about it in a jiffy because they’ll leave behind a pungent rancid butter smell as their final goodbye!  Another easy way to identify these small ants is a somewhat unusual behavior of the worker ants. When alarmed, they will raise their abdomens in the air! 

These ants often nest indoors in wall or floor voids. Since ants need water or moisture to survive they are often found near kitchens, sinks, or pipe chases. However, oddly enough, I did not find these ants in their usual location, and I had to expand my inspection to determine where the were and how they were getting inside the home. Unfortunately, this home had  been vacant for awhile, and as often happens, during that time simmering pest control problems will blossom. This homeowner was away for an extended period, about four months, and during that time she forgot to renew her pest control contract, letting it expire. Cowleys was unable to reach her. The time since our last inspection and treatment gave the ants a big window of opportunity to enter her home and walk over the previous chemical barriers that we placed down, since they had since lost their efficacy. To be effective, these treatments need to be periodically applied a few times a year. Unfortunately, when the homeowner arrived home after her extended absence, she was greeted by these stink ants. Before she finished bringing her luggage in the house, she called us to get to her house ASAP to take care of her ant problem. 

Upon arrival, I conducted a thorough inspection focusing on the basement and first floor to determine where these ants found a breach to gain access inside the home. During my inspection, I’m on the lookout for an ant trail so that I can trace the movement of the ants back to the nest. To kill social insects like ants, it is not enough to kill the foraging ants. You have to find and kill the colony and the queen who will keep reproducing more members of the colony until she is stopped in her tracks for good. 

I noticed a little ant trail near her front door, and applied crack and crevice treatment behind baseboards. With this aerosol treatment, I “smoked out” a bunch of ants that were carrying their eggs! Given the level of activity, these ants had been in the home for quite some time. Tracing the ant trail, I determined that the ants had nested in the home’s air conditioning ducts over the winter. I applied spot treatments to the baseboards around the area, as well as a full perimeter treatment around exterior of home.  The foraging ants will feed on the bait and carry it back to the colony to share with the other ants. Soon thereafter, this colony will be eliminated and the story of the invading odorous house ants will come to an abrupt end.