If you operate any kind of commercial business that sells food, you have to always be on guard against rodents. If rodents are seen around your building, your store will develop a bad reputation and you could lose business. You might fail a health inspection, and you could put the health of your employees and customers at risk. It's not worth taking chances with rodents, so working with a rodent control company is usually necessary to keep the pests at bay or eliminate them. Here's how a rodent control professional can help.
Search The Building For Entry Points
Rats are clever, and they can climb well and jump far. They can get on your roof and chew their way inside the building, or they can squeeze through a crack in the foundation. A vital step in rodent control is finding the tiny areas where rats can get in and sealing them up. A professional will go over your entire building and use exclusion methods like wire mesh or steel plates to keep rats from getting inside.
Identify Things That Attract Rats
When you sell packaged food or if you cook on the premises, you have to be careful about how you store food and clean up spills so the odors don't attract rodents. While you know having food in your building increases the risk for rodents, you may not realize mistakes you could be making that attract the pests.
The rodent control company might offer advice on keeping the dumpster area clean and covered, storing food, and cleaning your kitchen and food storage areas so they are less attractive to rats.
Put Out Traps
The last thing you want to do is use poison that causes rats to die behind a wall and create a terrible odor in your store. Instead, the pest control company will probably set up traps inside and outside so the rodents can be captured, found, and disposed of. You may have traps set on an ongoing basis so you can watch for rat activity.
If you start catching more rats, you may need to step up your rodent control efforts so you don't end up with an infestation. You probably don't have the time or interest to set and monitor traps, so you can leave the job to the professionals and focus instead on operating your store.
Using a rodent control company for preventing rats is a good tactic because prevention is easier than elimination. Plus, you reduce the risk of customers seeing rats or their droppings around your property.
Can you sit down and make a list of critters you don't like? Chances are, most of the critters on your list will be household pests. You might list cockroaches, ants, spiders, mice, and rats. Maybe you also mention termites, which are not very creepy, but can absolutely destroy your home. Coming into contact with any of these critters can be disheartening, but pest control companies are there to help. Learn more about this industry and how pest control professionals work right here on this website. We know spiders and ants can be creepy, and we want to give you the information necessary to keep them away.