Pest Management Professional, June 2016

Photos courtesy of and coPyrighted by gene White Pmimages@ earthlink net heather gooch By Heather gooch editor Oha in oh i o Youve got ants eh No uncles I n early May I seized upon the opportunity to follow J R Walsh around at an odorous house ant OHA account Walsh 45 is a service manager for Patton Pest Control in Novelty Ohio an eastern Cleveland suburb His no uncles line although up there with the best of the worst dad jokes is a good temperature taker when meeting a client for the first time Ive found there are three types of customers Walsh explains There are the ones who want you to just have at it and leave you alone the ones who make some small talk and then leave you to do your work and the ones who want to follow you around and have tea and biscuits He says having a silly joke or two on hand can help break the ice Walsh has been with Patton Pest Control for 25 years The former volunteer firefighter says the job came at a time when he was working as a car detailer at a dealership He had come to the realization that he needed a career that let him work outdoors I like to solve problems and thats what I like most about this job he says OpenIng the InvestIgatIOn We head to a brick and siding splitlevel home in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by mature trees A dog barks from behind the basement door as we enter the house to talk with the homeowner Before we go in Walsh explains when he trains techs he tells them to put down the sprayer The flashlight is the No 1 tool when you come in he says Your hour long visit should consist of 45 minutes investigating and 15 minutes spraying not the other way around Walsh knocks on the door introduces us to the homeowner and makes his infamous uncle joke which is met with a polite chuckle It swiftly indicates that the man who seems to be in his early 30s and looks like he took the day off from work to wait for the appointment would prefer that we do what we came to do and move on Walsh gets down to business Right away Walsh notices the store bought ant bait stations in strategic spots around the intersection of the entry hall living room and kitchen He later tells me that if a client does resort to do it yourself tactics hed rather it be bait traps than spraying aerosols because the latter simply breaks the ants pheromone trails and causes them to scatter The homeowner explains how he and his wife purchased this their first house in January They had been dealing with the ants for a couple weeks While most ants were initially found in the kitchen his wife had reached her breaking point when they were marching up her leg on the living room couch Thats when she called Patton Pest Control Happy wife J R Walsh shows off the bug whisperer bumper sticker a co worker put on his truck happy life Walsh sympathizes He gets his flashlight out and shines it on a couple of ants hurriedly walking to and from the entry halls coat closet Theyre definitely OHA Tapinoma sessile a species Walsh says he has seen more of in recent years He opens the closets double doors and finds a large plastic container of dog food Theres their protein he says Although the container is obviously a step up from simply storing bagged food on the floor he notes that even crumbs that fall into the tile cracks can be enough to be a food source for the ants After further inspection Walsh realizes there are two trails one back and forth from the dog food storage container in the closet and one about 12 ft away following the horizontal line of the heat register against the outside kitchen Continued on page 62 Odorous house ants are easy to encounter and hard to pin down getting to the source s takes patience and an integrated approach 60 June 2016 pest Management professional mypmp net