What Is The Best Way To Keep Rodents Out Of My Chicago Restaurant
Active rodent control is just a fact of life for restaurant owners in every part of the world, but as Chicago is one of the greatest rodent hubs in the United States, serious attention to detail is important to keeping your business safe from these prolific pests. If you’re struggling to stay on top of the issue, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything wrong. Restaurants have the perfect conditions that rodents crave, but poor sanitation certainly won’t help.
What Attracts Rodents To Restaurants?
All pests are attracted to residences and businesses for the same reasons, but rodents are especially happy to have easy access to the necessities for life: food, water, and shelter.
Allowing them easy access to these commodities is what causes an infestation, and allowing rodents inside your business may cause severe consequences.
The Dangers Of Rodents To Restaurants
Rodents are filthy animals known to carry several pathogens, including salmonella, rat-bite fever, infectious jaundice, cowpox virus, trichinosis, the black plague, typhus, and disease-spreading ticks, fleas, and mites. These diseases can be spread through contact with a rodent, through infected food, or through contact with high-traffic areas where rodents leave their urine and feces. Not only are these diseases a risk for customers, but they can jeopardize staff.
Your staff are your most important resource for running your business, so not only is it important to protect their health, but it’s also important to protect their satisfaction in your employment. Rodent sightings are an easy way to cause emotional upset and stress in staff members who aren’t equipped to deal with this problem.
Rodent sightings for staff members may make work an obstacle, but rodent sightings for customers may cause irreversible damage to a business’s reputation. If a health department issues a strike against a business for their rodent problems, or if reviews are posted concerning a sighting, these things are difficult to remedy and reverse if the damage spreads around the community.
Lastly, rodents are active chewers whose nirvana lies in your food storage. If let loose in a contained room with easily penetrable food, the financial damage alone could eat into your profits or create setbacks in food availability for your customers.
How Do You Prevent Rodents From Getting In?
Preventing an infestation comes down to sanitation and maintenance. While sanitation doesn’t have to be a factor, it’s best to make sure it isn’t one. Keeping rodents away could come down to implementing these safeguards for your business:
- Keep outside doors closed except when in use.
- Place trash and dumpsters far away from the property, preferably at least twenty feet, and in sealed containers. It would also help to clean any trash receptacles once a week.
- Repair and maintain pipes and landscape to prevent leaking or standing water.
- Seal any cracks or holes around the outside of the business with silicone-based caulk or steel wool.
- Indoors, keep surfaces sanitized and free from spills and crumbs. Outdoors, immediately clean spills and crumbs to prevent attracting them to the property.
- Keep indoor trash in a sealed container and regularly take the trash out.
- Store food in glass or metal containers, not cardboard or plastic.
- Before taking in a shipment of food, thoroughly inspect packages and crates for signs of rodents, including holes, gnaw marks, and feces.
- Trim back tree limbs and shrubs to limit easy access to the property. Limbs shouldn’t be hanging over roofs, and shrubs shouldn’t be planted right next to the property, especially not under windows.
- Keep your lawn trimmed and free of any fallen seeds, fruit, or leaf debris.
- Don’t allow easy hiding places next to the property, including lawn decorations or signs. These could provide easy bolt holes for them to slip indoors in a second.
- Keeping a clean, maintained business isn’t foolproof. Sometimes, you need additional measures of protection, and that’s where Aerex Pest Control can help.
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