Wayne County

Pest Control in Macedon, NY

Macedon sits at the western edge of Wayne County, close enough to Rochester that a good deal of its newer housing is commuter-built. Those subdivisions have gone up on ground that was orchard and farmland, and the insects that lived on that ground did not leave when the houses arrived.

Pest control built for Macedon

New homeowners here are regularly surprised to find thousands of cluster flies on a south-facing wall in September, having assumed a modern house would not have an old-house problem. Cluster flies develop in the soil of surrounding fields and orchards rather than in buildings, so a tight new house on former fruit ground sits in prime habitat. The construction helps — fewer entry points — but it does not change what is underneath.

Suburban housing also brings suburban ants: pavement and odorous house ants nesting under slabs, walkways and driveway edges and foraging indoors, which is why treating the ones on the counter accomplishes so little.

The older part of Macedon is canal village like the rest of the corridor, with the mouse and moisture pressure that 19th-century building stock produces.

New houses on old orchard ground

Macedon sits at the western edge of Wayne County, close enough to Rochester that much of its recent housing is commuter-built, and those subdivisions have gone up on ground that was orchard and farmland within living memory. The houses are modern and tight. The ground underneath them has not changed at all.

That produces the most common surprise we deal with at this end of the county: a homeowner with a ten-year-old house and thousands of cluster flies on the south wall every September, who reasonably assumed a new build would not have an old-house problem. Cluster fly larvae are parasites of earthworms and develop in the soil of surrounding fields and orchards. The construction of the house is close to irrelevant to how many arrive.

The older part of Macedon is canal village like the rest of the corridor, with the usual 19th-century foundations and the problems that come with them.

Modern construction helps, but only with the second half

A tight new house genuinely has fewer entry points, which means sealing is quicker and more complete than on a canal-village property. What it cannot do is reduce the number of insects arriving at the wall, and once they are into a wall void they are as unreachable in a new house as in an old one.

So the work here is timing. An exterior application to the sunny south and west elevations in late summer, before they gather, is what changes the outcome. Treating indoors in October reaches almost nothing.

For the suburban ants that come with this kind of housing — pavement and odorous house ants under slabs, walkways and driveway edges — the colony is outside and the ants on the counter are foragers. Perimeter work and following the trail is what ends it.