Every flat in Baldwin House has now been treated for ants. This only happened because of the residents association campaign.
In August 2020, the St Martin’s Residents Association were approached by several of the residents of Baldwin House. Baldwin House is a block of 50 flats at the junction of High Trees and TulseHill. Residents reported that they had problems with ants in their homes. They had been told individually by their landlord, Optivo, that the problem was unique to each flat rather than a block problem.
Volunteers on behalf of the residents association contacted each resident of Baldwin House as the number of complaints indicated a wider ant infestation. The volunteers posted a survey through the door of each home in the block. The residents responded with stories of ants everywhere in their homes, including in their food and with details of the efforts they had made to rid their properties of ants.
“The ants are everywhere, on my food”
“I’m buying lots of different sprays and nothing is helping” said another
“They get into food stuff and appliances” said a third
By September 2020 Optivo seemed to have noticed the number of people complaining. They raised a repair to treat a number of different properties in Baldwin House, job 1548555. But we said there was no point treating part of the block, the ants would simply move to another flat. So we asked everyone in Baldwin House to contact Optivo to ask they be added to job 1548555. We got a good response to that. Asking people to complain was one thing, but saying there was a job number and could they please be added got a much better response.
By October 2020 job 1548555 had been updated lots of times. Optivo agreed to treat the entire block and treat it as an emergency. This took several visits but by late January 2021 the ants had gone.
But they were only removed because residents worked together. Acting alone the residents would have been told to buy spray to treat their individual flats. Only by acting together did we persuade Optivo to treat the entire block.
This worked for the residents of Baldwin House, it could work for you too. If you have a similar situation please contact us so we can discuss how we can help.
Photo Credit: By Stephen Ausmus – http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/dec04/k11622-1.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10112924
St Martins TRA 