There are a great many wonderful things about living in the Garden State: there's the vibrant array of urban and suburban communities, the hometown feel in close proximity to New York City, and all kinds of recreational and cultural activities. And don't forget the diverse wildlife. 

Ah, yes, wildlife. In the diverse mix of ecosystems that is New Jersey, that can range from obnoxious avian invaders like seagulls and other waterfowl, to ants, mosquitoes, or even bedbugs. Whether you live in the heart of an urban enclave or in a more rural HOA surrounded by woodlands, pests like these will likely find their way into your space at some point. Dealing with them effectively—and safely—requires a joint effort from managers, staff, and residents alike. 

Who Goes There? 

The first step is to figure out what is lurking in your home, says Arthur Katz, president of Knockout Pest Control in Uniondale, Long Island. Homeowners on the 23rd floor in Newark or Jersey City won't usually have to worry about bees, termites or carpenter ants invading their home, for example, Katz says. “Those come from structural problems, and they won’t be in apartments,” but everyone living in a more urban environment will have to be on high alert for roaches, water bugs, mice, bedbugs and carpet beetles. 

Still, if there were a competition among vermin to find the most universally present pest critter, rodents would win—they’re anywhere and everywhere, says Nana Kojo Ayesu, owner of Kojo’s Pest Elimination Company, LLC, based in the Bronx, New York. “The major pest problems I find [especially in a city] are rodents, followed by bedbugs followed by roaches.” High-rise dwellers may have fewer problems than those in private homes, but their issues may be more challenging because of the propensity of these creatures to travel from one home to another. 

And if rats aren't enough of a headache, according to Katz, we’re in the middle of termite season. “We’re getting hundreds of calls for carpenter ants, pavement ants, bees and wasps” in private homes, he says. “Our schedule is full of those.” 

And if you’ve noticed more ants than ever this year, you’re not imagining it, says Jeffrey Dworkin, president of Ecology Exterminating in Brooklyn, New York. “Ants are very strong this year because we had a longer, colder winter,” he says. “Now that the summer is finally here, they’re all over the place because they feed on nectar, and it is creating a big, big ant problem.” 

Ants are a problem for everyone regardless of whether you live in a high-rise or a single-family house. They contaminate foods, infest structures and build ugly mounds in lawns, Dworkin says. Carpenter ants—the largest species in the region—can very in color from black to red or yellow. You can find them under household insulation, in wall voids, door frames, window frames, near tree holes or under attic eaves. There has even been an influx of a nasty subspecies of ant that was blown into town in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and appears to have stuck around. An expert came to debrief Katz's crew on the newcomer; according to him, the ant's sting causes pain and lingering swelling for those unlucky enough to meet one.

Not Very Mice

While ants are in high gear at the moment, that other scourge—the mice are never far away. According to Dworkin, mice are more prominent in colder weather because they take shelter inside the buildings.

If you think you’re living in a mouse-free building, think again, says another pest pro. You simply may not see the mice, but they’re there, behind the walls.

“Mice are in 80 to 90 percent of the buildings,” he says. “When you turn the heat on, the pipes hurt their feet, and when they get hot-foot, they come into apartments.” That’s why more mice invade apartments in the fall and in the winter, and why they leave in the spring and in the summer seasons.

One type of bug that’s always active regardless of the season is the bedbug.

“People might think that bedbugs have gone away because the media has stopped talking about them, but they're as abundant now as they’ve ever been,” Katz says.

Ayesu agrees, and adds that bedbugs are opportunistic critters, positioning themselves wherever there's the most traffic, and therefore the most opportunities to make a meal.“If there are a lot of holes, they can go from one apartment to another,” he says. “If there’s a theater, a subway, a bus, a plane, other people’s apartments, restaurants—anywhere where people are going to sit for a while and may not feel the bedbugs—that’s where they’ll be.”

And the general bug scene is getting even worse for tri-state residents. Another new arrival on the scene is the stinkbug.“They look like a shield,” Dworkin says, “and they attach to the sides of buildings and climb into any openings.”

While stinkbugs, even lots of them, won’t do any damage to you or to your home, they will do damage to your sense of smell if you squish them, because—as their name would suggest—they literally let off a terrible odor when they die. Instead of smashing the bugs, Dworkin suggests picking them up with tissue paper and flushing them down the toilet so you won’t be subjected to their stench. 

Bug Beaters 

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to conquer bugs, many of which are leaps and bounds ahead of their harsher, less environmentally-friendly predecessors, and pest control pros are on board to help boards, managers, and residents keep their properties vermin-free. 

For example, all the products Katz’s company uses are non-lethal to people; he chooses only to use products that are lethal to bugs—including one for termite eradication that most people still don’t know about or use frequently. It’s called Sentricon, and his company was one of the first to use it in New York. Katz says the eco-friendly solution is anything but friendly to termites—it kills nearly 100% of them.

The resident should also take some responsibility by keeping their home nice and clean, Dworkin says. “Extermination is no substitute for sanitation,” he says. 

Still, there’s one way to get rid of pests without murdering them and cleaning your home from top to bottom—and that’s by preventing them from entering your house in the first place. According to Dworkin, the pest management company can close the holes and they can caulk the cracks and the crevices so you can reduce the dependence on chemicals by relying on prevention.

However, before you let just anyone kill and protect your home from your bugs, make sure they’re properly accredited to get the job done correctly. Katz’s team is Quality Pro and Green Pro—and fewer than 1 percent of the companies in the country get that affiliation, he says. “We promise to not only do our work according to the highest standards of the state, but we go well above and beyond that,” Katz says. “We’re drug-free, we do criminal background checks, and our employees have to go through three levels of certification.” His team also gets certified through the state via the National Pest Management Association. 

Another component of the pest control and eradication equation is responsibility. Say an apartment—or several adjoining units—in your building or HOA have pest issues. Should the residents of the affected unit or units call a professional on their own, or does the board call the exterminator? Should the management company pick up the phone?

Dworkin says he’s typically hired by the management company to do the public areas such as the basement, hallways and common rooms. “It depends on how the co-op or condo structure is set,” Dworkin says. In some condo buildings, each unit is responsible for their own unit, so they would have to pay for their area. More typically, however, he says, in all residential buildings, the management company pays for everything and bills the association. In a rental building, the landlord is responsible for any bug issues—even if an infestation problem can be traced to one tenant. It's therefore recommended that whenever a rental unit becomes vacant, the landlord bring in a licensed pest control company to inspect it and verify that it’s bug free. They should issue a certification stating so. 

Some municipalities vary a bit in what they require from landlords by way of pest-free certification. In New York City for example, you’re required to disclose a one-year history of bedbug status to potential renters, but if you’ve had bedbugs in the past year but have gotten rid of the issue, you can use the certification from the pest control company to try to convince the potential renters that the unit is now safe. When the tenant signs the lease, they also should sign an addendum showing that they received the certification and saw that the unit was bug-free when they moved into the unit.

While the occasional marauding mouse or pesky pigeon may be dealt with by your building's engineer or maintenance person, it's important that your building or HOA have a competent, knowledgeable, properly accredited pest control expert on the team to address anything more serious. The field of pest control and eradication have come a very long way since the days when Raid and a flyswatter were the most sophisticated tools to be had.

Danielle Braff is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to The New Jersey Cooperator.