Mice in restaurants

There was a recent news story about a local fast food restaurant about how there were mice running around the dining room area during business hours! Coming from a pest control background I was able to asses this from a few different angles. For one thing it is not too uncommon for mice to be in a restaurant. That is the reason for pest control. If the proper control measures are in place then the problem of having them running wild in the dining room should be lessened, but the fact that a restaurant is full of food, heat from the ovens, and moisture from the sinks makes a restaurant a mouse heaven! Not only that, but there are a million ways they can enter a restaurant. Constant deliveries, customers coming in and out, and lots of wires, pipes and cables coming into the building make it easy for mice to enter. The goal is to trap and kill them before they are able to reproduce or become a problem. Pest control technicians need to be diligent in maintaining traps and monitoring devices and they need the cooperation and support of the restaurant. It is a team effort. The pest control technician is there for maybe a half an hour a week, the restaurant staff is there all the time. If staff sees something they have to convey that to the pest control tech, the staff will also need to comply with any repairs or alterations to make the environment less inviting to mice. When stories of mice in a restaurant hit the news everyone is up in arms and attention is drawn to the establishment and then it all dies down and things get back to normal. The fact is there are bugs and mice all over the world and probably in your favorite restaurant, good pest control is all you can hope for, and remember the most important word in pest control is "control".