Ant Pest Control in Ridgewood, NJ

Why Ridgewood homes get ants

Ridgewood's residential streets are full of older colonials, Tudors and Victorians, plus plenty of mid-century homes, almost all of them under tall shade trees. Ho-Ho-Kus Brook and the parks along it keep parts of town green and damp. That mix gives ants three things they like:

• Old wood that has seen a lot of weather. Porches, window frames, sunroom additions and garage trim are where carpenter ants find softened wood to nest in.
• Mature trees. Big trees mean stumps, hollow limbs and leaf-filled gutters — homes for carpenter ant colonies and moisture at the roofline.
• Landscaped beds against the house. Deep mulch and dense plantings stay damp and let odorous house ants nest right at the foundation.

Pavement ants round it out, nesting under the many driveways, walkways, patios and garage slabs and coming up through basement floor cracks.

Ant bait or ant spray: which actually works?

This is the question we get most, and the answer depends on the ant.

For small ants like odorous house ants and pavement ants, the right bait wins. Worker ants carry it back and share it through the colony, reaching the queens that never come out. It takes days rather than minutes, which is why people give up on it too soon. Spraying near a bait drives ants away from it.

For carpenter ants, the nest is the target. That means finding the void, sill or deck board they're in and treating it directly, plus dealing with the outside colony.

Store sprays are fine for a single ant on a counter, but they don't reach the colony, and with odorous house ants they can split one colony into several. More detail: ant bait vs. ant spray.