Rodents are an extremely problematic pest for any business, but they present additional concerns for businesses that deal with food handling and preparation. Now that we are right into winter, the threat of rodent infestations increase. While other pests may tend to become less rampant during the cooler months, this is when rodents are at their worst.
They’ll be seeking shelter from the cold and a readily available food source (whether they’re intending to set up a home in your premises or simply stop off for a few days). The problem with rodents is how quickly they can reproduce and a single rodent problem turns into a numerous rodent problem.
A pair of mating rodents can result in reproduction numbers of anywhere between 400 to 700 more rodents. By the time rodents reach 3 months of age, they are ready to reproduce and may do so several times a year. Rodent infestations and repopulation of this magnitude can lead to serious health risks, heightened chances of severe property damage, and, of course, health and safety breaches.
You cannot afford to be blasé in regards to any pest problem. No matter how big or small the pest or how extensive the problem is, you need to address it immediately. In the end, there’s far more at stake than just your reputation if a rodent infestation occurs. You owe it to the health and wellbeing of all your staff and patrons to stop any rodents before they become a problem.
It is not a problem you should handle yourself. Your best choice is to hire www.pinnaclepest.com which is a professional pest management service provider.
Health risks
Rodents can carry with them any number of diseases that can present a host of health risks for staff and customers/clients. Along with being possible carriers of diseases such as Salmonella and E. coli, rodents are also notorious for contaminating food sources by simply being near them.
If you run a restaurant, food processing plant, or any other business that specializes in food handling and/or preparation, rodents could render all of your foodstuffs unusable. Worse still, if you don’t notice an infestation and they contaminate your goods, this could lead to unfit food being made available to the public or meals being served in restaurants that could make patrons very ill.
It’s important that you remember just how severe the health risks can be. While we speak of people falling ill, it can be far worse than that. High-level contamination could kill, and that is not something you want weighing on the collective conscience of you or your staff. Even when looking at it from an objective, non-emotional standpoint, such an event could spell the end of your business.
Maintaining your reputation
Outside of health risks and costs, there is still the matter of your business’s reputation. We now live in a world where one incident can severely cripple your business’s name. Whether it’s a rat dropping, a rat sighting, or any other witness of evidence that your business has a rodent infestation, that one moment of a witness can quickly turn into a warning that is spread online within a matter of hours.
