Jena Ball couldn't sleep—the noise was deafening and keeping her awake night after night. The racket wasn't coming from the next door neighbors, but instead was emanating from inside her condo wall. "It was bizarre," says Ball.

But even more bizarre was what was causing the sound. "Turns out, a hive of big black bees had bored into the outside walls of my unit," says Ball, who lives overseas. "There were so many, the wall was actually warm to the touch. When the maintenance company found out, they sent in a special Bee Swat Team. Apparently there are two varieties of these particular bees—one is noisy but harmless, but the other is very aggressive and their sting is toxic."

Ball was lucky—her bees were of the harmless variety, but the story is still frightening. Whether you are living in a condo in Japan or in New Jersey, pests are an inevitable nuisance that can damage both landscapes and homes. Whether it's raccoons causing mayhem amongst your trash cans, termites lunching on your clubhouse, birds using your adjacent golf course as their own porta-potty, or deer grazing placidly on your meticulously-groomed grounds, it's a year-round task to keep pests away and property intact.

More than Just a Nuisance

While it's true that pest animals can devastate gardens, lawns, trees, and other property, the damage that wildlife and insects can cause is not just limited to aesthetics; certain little blighters can be downright dangerous to your health. A new national study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows that cockroach allergens appear to worsen asthma symptoms in children more than other known triggers.

Bees and wasps, while not usually a problem inside the home, pose real threats to individuals allergic to their stings. A beehive or wasp nest that would otherwise be considered harmless becomes much more ominous if a person living nearby is in danger of going into anaphylactic shock after being stung.

On a less grave—though unpleasant—note, the bedbugs are most definitely biting. A recent survey by Orkin Pest Control found that reports of bedbug infestations increased by 300 percent between 2000 and 2001, 70 percent between 2001 and 2002, and 70 percent between 2002 and 2003. The company reported bedbug infestations last year in 33 states. Bedbugs often hide out in the cracks and crevices of vacated apartments and condo units, biding their time until a new owner moves in. The nocturnal creatures then break cover to infiltrate bed linens, carpets, closets, and other favorite spots.

Other Offenders

While bugs are the probably the most common and most reviled household pests, the avian and mammalian varieties give HOA residents plenty of grief as well. While bees and wasps pose significant threat, rodent dander, droppings, and parasites can infect humans, and many small, pesky mammals can carry rabies.

"Mice, rodents, cockroaches and ants are actually the most common pests in New Jersey," says Philip Waldorf, president of Bell Environmental Services in Parsippany. Unfortunately, mice not only cause structural damage from chewing, but there have been fatalities from exposure to rodent droppings, which are infested with germs and allergens. "Mice don't come in on upper floors," says Waldorf. "They come in from downstairs because someone didn't do proper pest control in the basement. Then the mice multiply and go through the building."

Along with mice and rats, birds are also known to carry multiple diseases, and deer harbor the ticks that carry Lyme Disease. According to one New Jersey study conducted by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics at Rutgers' Cook College and Experiment Station, within the last three years, 24 percent of survey respondents also experienced damage to landscaping around their residences that they attributed to deer. Of those who experienced deer damage, trees and shrubs were cited as the most frequently damaged type of landscaping (62 percent), followed by flowers, vegetables, and lawns.

A Better Way

The damage to property and threat to health that pest animals represent is well documented—that much is clear. What's less clear is what can and should be done to prevent our homes from being invaded in the first place. Should we try to kill pests as they come in, discourage them from choosing our condo as their next residence, or attempt to control their populations at the source?

In the past, the solutions to pest problems were often just as damaging as the pests themselves. Pesticides designed to be fatal to animals were usually harmful to humans as well. The use of pesticides on trees and shrubbery caused toxic runoff during rainstorms that drained into roadways, which eventually reached the rural estuaries, lakes, rivers and aquifers that feed into New Jersey's waterways. That led to poisoned fish, unsafe drinking water, and negative impacts on ecosystems across the entire region.

Today, professional pest control companies don't typically don masks and moon suits and hose down entire houses with toxic chemical cocktails. "For example," says Waldorf, "now we use trapping systems to catch mice, as opposed to using poison. You can't put poison in a wall and just have the mouse die there."

If smaller animals have come looking for a good meal and a roof over their heads and have settled into the attic or another part of a home or condo unit, removing them is done by using an animal-friendly netting or trap. "We follow state regulations as to the release protocol once an animal, such as a skunk, raccoon, groundhog or possum is trapped," says Sal Santamaria, vice president of operations of Bug Doctor Inc. in Paramus. "It has just as much right to live here as we do, so we have a responsibility to remove it safely."

The newer, eco-friendly pest control methods aren't designed to kill non-bug animals; these methods just allow the animal to be removed from the property. Methods such as baiting, relocating, and electro-shocking pest animals and birds, as well as next-generation chemical products that are safer for animals and humans, are redefining what it means to call the exterminator.

In the past, companies would eliminate roaches, ants and other bugs by putting chemicals in the soil, or spraying inside and outside the home, but this practice has largely given way to bait traps. Bugs are lured to the traps and then take the poison back to their colonies, where it's dispersed throughout the population and kills the entire colony at its home base. The bait still contains a toxic chemical, but the chemicals used most often today are odorless and safe for humans and pets. Although most people are still in favor of killing bugs outright and en masse, the use of harsher pesticides is a last, not first, resort.

"'Pesticide' is now a broad term that encompasses a broad array of procedures that are out there today," says Santamaria. "We use environmentally friendly products that can be applied directly to the soil. To you and me it's unnoticeable, but animals find it unpleasant, and it deters them from digging around the property."

Get Out and Stay Out

The first step in eradicating a pest problem—whether it's bugs bugging you or bats driving you batty—lies not with calling in a SWAT team armed with canisters of chemicals, but with making your property as unappealing to pest animals as possible, and taking steps to keep them from infiltrating your home.

"We follow a very logical, three-faceted approach," says Waldorf. "We seal any openings in the building or home to prevent the pests from coming in, then address the reason why they were trying to come in in the first place. Was it for food, or shelter, or some other reason? And finally, we'll use pesticides, though only when absolutely necessary if the first two don't control the problem. It takes effort."

That effort can differ, depending on what specific pest problem an association or owner is facing. Termites, for example, love moisture—so eliminating accumulated water around the building's foundation is important. Setting up decoys and scarecrows can discourage geese and other troublesome birds from roosting, and sealing up holes and cracks in siding can keep bees and hornets from setting up house.

Many HOAs have taken to requiring tight-fitting or lockable lids on all community trashcans to ward off marauding raccoons. Not only do the fuzzy banditos make a terrible mess, but they have a tendency to mix it up with neighborhood dogs, and sometimes carry rabies. Cutting off their food supply can help encourage raccoons to go elsewhere for their midnight snack.

Not all nuisance mammals are small and cute. As developers push farther and farther away from city centers, reports of bears digging through Dumpsters and trundling through suburban backyards have been on the upswing. This year, in an effort to keep bear-human contact to a minimum, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell presented West Milford Township in Passaic County with a $200,000 grant to purchase bear-resistant garbage cans. Township officials plan to acquire the cans in the fall, a time when bear nuisance complaints in West Milford are at their highest.

To help control the very common problem of birds nesting upon a home or association building, Bell Environmental has also patented another method of deterrent: an electrical device that provides a powerful yet harmless intermittent shock to discourage pest birds from roosting in the protected area.

Don't Bug Me

For the safety of HOA residents during large scale outdoor pesticide applications—like those used to control gypsy moth or mosquitoes, for example—the New Jersey DEP requires that all residents be advised of the date and time of the application. By law, pesticide applicators must place one legal advertisement and one prominent display advertisement in two newspapers circulated in the proposed target area at least seven days before the scheduled application date. Commercial pesticide applicators also are required to give an individual advance notice of a pesticide application if that individual requests it of the applicator. Sign posting on lawns and at public buildings is also required when pesticides are being used.

Pests—whether furry and cute or totally unappealing—are part of urban and suburban life. Humans provide both food and shelter to opportunistic critters, and the key is to reduce the attraction and cut off their food source. When it comes to bugs, especially, Waldorf says there is one main difference why some buildings have pest problems and some don't. "The difference is that a dirty person will live with them, and a clean person won't."

Lisa Iannucci is a freelance writer living in Poughkeepsie, New York.