i am still scratching my head over jcaraway's initial response but he hit on a good point. you can spray the hell out of your place but if your neighbors are filthy bastards you're going to battling bugs no matter what. preventative measures, i.e. having the outside sprayed regularly is vital so you should find out what how or if the complex does that regularly or only calls when ppl request it indoors. it's got to be a group effort.
one summer ants got into my PB capt'n crunch in the pantry. the entire pantry was crawling with them. i relegated myself to signing a terminix contract even though i always thought it was unnecessary. although the assoc would spray the outside landscaped areas (this is when i was living in a detached condo), i still have terminix come to spray the garage, patio, and specifically all the areas directly along house. i asked about toxicity and they said these days the stuff they spray is less toxic than the flea medications people put on their pets. there's no fumes whatsoever and i leave the house for about 15-20 minutes but even that is totally optional. i get the inside done only once a yr because it's a pain to clear out all the cupboards and pantry, plus regardless of how harmless they claim the stuff is, i'd rather not have it done inside too much. once a yr -- that's it! but every quarter or so i will have the outside done. i've never seen ants inside the house since.
these days in shady canyon it's not so much of a problem because i'm further removed from the rest of the filthy plebes of irvine.
