Trace it rather than wipe it away
Each worker that repeats the same trip to food and back adds to the scent trail, which is why a line only seems to get busier the longer it's left alone, just as near Harringay, where the famous Victorian ladder streets between Green Lanes and the railway. Wiping it away only means the ants lay a fresh one; watching where it goes tells you where the colony actually is.
Muswell Hill and Crouch End's back gardens
The semis and larger houses around Muswell Hill and Crouch End typically have a garden with a patio or a path, and the warm, dry ground under paving slabs is exactly what an ant colony looks for. A nest does not have to be right against the house either - a low garden wall well away from the back door can still send a trail all the way into the kitchen.
Flats and terraces without much garden
Closer to Wood Green and Harringay, where gardens are smaller or shared, a trail is more likely to be following a crack in a shared path, the base of a boundary wall, or gaps around pipework entering the building, rather than anything under a private patio.
What to leave alone for now
- Spraying the trail, which kills the foragers you can see and leaves the colony intact
- Pouring boiling water into paving, which can damage mortar without reaching the queen
- Filling the entry gap before the nest is dealt with, which sends ants to a new gap instead
- Scattering powders along the trail, which can split a colony into several smaller ones
Closing the way in afterwards
Once the colony has been cleared, go back and seal just the gaps the ants were actually using, whether that's a threshold, a pipe hole or a crack in the mortar, true near Tottenham too, where densely multi-let Victorian terraces stretching towards the River Lea. Keep weep holes and air bricks open, blocking them as well only creates a damp problem inside the wall, much as it does near Crouch End, where victorian terraces and larger houses around the clock tower and Broadway.
Booking ant control in Haringey
Ant control in Haringey runs £190 for a flat and £220 for a house, and because around Harringay, where the famous Victorian ladder streets between Green Lanes and the railway, it helps to say roughly whereabouts in the garden the nest might be when you book ant control, with the rest on the Haringey ant control page.
