By: Maliek Watkins, Contributing Writer
One of the most frustrating and annoying creatures that humans have to deal with, is one of the smallest creatures which is the ant. As for the students of Saint Leo University, ants are basically only seen as an annoyance as their dorms are traversing their living spaces. From the beginning of the semester to now, students reported an influx of ants in and around the apartment areas.
Associate Vice President of Facilities Management, Jose Caban explained that there were several factors that played into the “sudden” appearance of ants around University Campus; including but not limited to weather changes, and human factors. According to Caban, “What you are seeing with this ant issue is saturation, We’ve had a lot of rain this summer and we’ve had a lot of hot temperatures, and if you noticed they’re going into buildings because it’s just too wet and too hot when the] sun hits the grass when there’s water pooling, steaming and cooking the pests which leaves them looking for refuge.”
To remedy this issue, Caban turns to Angel Calderon Pest Control Technician at Terminix, and a partner of the Saint Leo community for over a decade. Calderon explained that usually persons request that their apartments and living areas be sprayed to eliminate the pests. Calderon explained this is not his first option saying, “I’ll go through it and I will assess the situation, see what it is, and [evaluate], what will be the least invasive method to the students.” Calderon explained that most times he uses a gel bait that attracts the creatures to it, when consumed the gel terminates the pests.
It was explained that the travel path of ants usually leads to spots like cabinets and crevices in the seams of the doors and hinges. Calderon explained that these would be the places he places the gel, clarifying that it would be completely impractical to spray pesticide in those areas as that is where food items and storage containers are kept.
Caban and Calderon emphasized the importance of placing in descriptive work orders when pests like ants are seen. “What ends up happening is I’ll get a work order; I’ll go to the room but the student’s not there whoever submitted it. I have to look around and try to find where the ants are,” said Calderon.
Caban explained that ants are not the only pests’ residents in the halls complain about. Amongst the 300+ work orders placed in since Aug. 2019, there were incidents of spiders, snakes
The pair explained that pests like ants find areas that they can hunker down in and come out only when it’s time to eat or drink. Caban says for this reason, it’s important not to compound the issue by providing sources for the animals to feed from.
Not only that, Angel mentioned that he also implores that when students submit work tickets, to be please as descriptive as possible, the more description they have of the problem, they better than serve in eradication of the pests.
