Commercial Pest Control Tips

Commercial Pest Control Tips. Keeping commercial buildings like shopping malls, offices, and retail businesses pest-free is so important to help maintain your reputation — and your bottom line. Imagine what would happen if your employees or customers saw a cockroach scurry across the floor of your conference room! When it comes to keeping the building clean and occupants healthy, we have a handful of tips you should follow.

Pest Control Tip #1: Find the hot spots

Your building should be welcoming to visitors and employees — and keep pests out. These are the areas of your facility that you need to keep a close eye on to help prevent pests from getting inside in the first place.

Lighting: Bugs are attracted to light sources, so ensure that you design new construction projects with lighting that’s a good distance from entrances. For existing lighting, see if it’s possible to move the lighting. If neither of these is an option, choose yellow incandescent or white LED bulbs; bugs have a hard time seeing lower wavelengths of color. 

Automatic doors: Regularly maintain automatic doors to ensure that they’re closing properly and sealing out pests. Make sure that the timer is set for long enough to let people through without also allowing unwelcome guests — 6 seconds is a pretty standard timing. Also, test the sensitivity of these doors as birds and other pests can trigger sensors.

Eating areas and break rooms: These areas should be at the top of your commercial cleaning crew’s priority list, but there are additional steps everyone can take to help keep pests at bay. Remind everyone to keep foods in sealed containers, regularly empty trash, and keep surfaces clean from food crumbs and debris.

Dumpsters: It may seem convenient to have dumpsters and trash cans close to your building, but they are essentially neon “open” signs for pests. The odor and contents of trash attract a variety of pests so these receptacles need to be located away from your facility and behind a fence if possible. 

Bathrooms: This is another important area to keep clean, even beyond what your janitorial staff does to keep them safe and healthy. Regularly clean out drains and pay close attention to any windows that are in restrooms as bugs can easily crawl through broken screens or cracked glass.

Pest Control Tip #2: Look for warning signs

Even if you follow the above advice, your facility could still encounter pest control issues. The key is to know what to look for when it comes to an infestation so you can call in the pros before things get problematic. Dead bugs are the first red flag. Spider webs in corners and on light fixtures could also mean you have a spider issue. Droppings could indicate rodents, and rustling or scratching in the walls could also mean you have creatures living in your facility. Other signs of a problem could be bird nests in manufacturing facilities, and wood shavings or furniture damage could mean termites. 

Pest Control Tip #3: Proactive Maintenance Matters

Just as it’s important to create maintenance strategies for other parts of your commercial building, pest prevention plans can go a long way towards helping protect against infestation and cut overall maintenance costs. Make sure these important steps are a regular part of your facility management approach.

• Check windows and doors for the condition of weather stripping and replace screens if you see signs of rips, holes, or other damage. 
• Install barriers on outlets that drain water off and away from your building to prevent pests from getting into drain pipes and gutters.
• Rodents like living in thick vegetation; plant large shrubs and bushes away from the building, and keep a close eye on landscaping overgrowth.
• Work with experienced pest control pros to talk about regular treatments along with plans of action in case you do encounter an infestation.

There’s no way around it: Pest infestations are bad for business, no matter what your business is. When it comes to pest control for your commercial building, it’s essential to have the right company handling the task for you. Nothing can sink your reputation like pests —  it gives customers the impression that the business owners and property managers aren’t professional or attentive to their facility. Customers will go elsewhere in a heartbeat!

Once you discover a pest issue in your commercial facility, you need to address it immediately. Our expert team can come in and get to the root of the issue immediately. Similarly, if you’re dealing with a pest control issue in your factory or in a space where you store products, call us. You could be otherwise opening yourself up to serious health violations that could put your business at risk.