Types of Office Pests

Here are the common pests you’d encounter in an office setting:

• Cockroaches: As long as there is discarded food, expect cockroaches to be present. What makes them love offices more is the wide variety of “food” they can get. They love feeding off the glue, paste, and materials made from paper, such as letters, books, drapes, and wallpaper. You wouldn’t want them near you because they transport harmful microbes to humans. They also produce odorous secretions that can contaminate and alter food’s flavour and aggravate people’s allergies and asthma symptoms.  
• Rodents: Rodents do not just damage your home; they are also scary when they reach your office space. Gnawing is their favourite activity, and they can do that to your electric wires or stored files, affecting the whole work system at your office. Moreover, once they find a new home, they multiply quickly. They’ll infest the entire place with their harmful urine, faeces, and dead skin flakes, causing food poisoning, asthma, and other illnesses. 
• Bed Bugs: Bed bugs are not only found in beds. They can also appear in your office. Although they don’t pose a high risk to an office setting, they love feeding off people’s blood. They also quickly multiply, so the more you let them stay, the more of them will infest the office. 
• Others: There are other types of pests your office building might encounter, such as fruit flies that love to feed off ripe fruits, fungus gnats that love to go around your office plants, or beetles and moths that randomly lay their eggs in food. 

What You Can Do

As soon as you see any signs of infestation in your office, you need to deal with the problem right away. 

1. Identify the problem areas 

You won’t know where to eliminate pests if you don’t see where the pests are hiding. Keep an eye on these spaces. Cockroaches and rats love kitchens and trash bins because these provide their primary food source. They may even see the bathroom as a welcoming place because of the presence of water. You’ll address the situation better if you have an idea of what you’re dealing with, so conduct inspections until you find their hiding places. 

2. Remove all the clutter

If you don’t want any rodents gnawing on items on your desk, don’t give them a reason to visit your workspace in the first place. Organize your files and clean them. Never leave food on your desk overnight. 

In the pantry or break room, put all food in sealed containers or inside the refrigerator. Ask employees who eat on their desks to wrap their food properly when disposing of their waste. Inform all employees about the need to stay clean and organized all the time. Educate them about the pests and how they infest an office building. 

A clean and clutter-free workspace will increase motivation and productivity for everyone at work. 

3. Get local pest control

Never think of bringing your pesticides from home and spraying them in the office on your own. It is not a good idea because it can cause coughing, eye irritation, nausea, or asthma. It is best to still leave everything up to professional pest control, especially when dealing with extreme cases. They can help you locate the problem areas and use safe methods to control and eliminate the infestation. 

Conclusion

Pests are added problems in the workplace, and no one wants to deal with them while also having many tasks to finish for work. Taking action about this problem and seeking professional pest control assistance can help you get rid of unwanted pests and protect your office for the months to come. 

If you need pest control services in Birmingham, you can call us at Willis Pest Control. We have fully qualified technicians you can hire at any time for any type of pest infesting your commercial space. Dial 0121 588 5258 to schedule an appointment.

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If you suspect that you have rats or mice in your property, it’s important that you act quickly to eliminate the problem. However, it also pays to know the signs of their presence to be sure that you’re dealing with the infestation appropriately.

Here’s a list of signs to look out for to help you make the right call:

The signs of infestation

There are plenty of signs you can keep an eye out for, whether in your home, workplace, or any other type of property.

The first and most obvious sign is that there are droppings. For mice, those droppings will look like grains of rice. Rat dropping will appear similar, although slightly larger. Note that these droppings will stay around for a long time, so a reliable way to test whether they are fresh or old is to pick them up with a glove. If they crumble, they are old and possibly from a previous infestation that has already been addressed. If they are soft and squishy, then the problem is likely ongoing.

Other signs include chewed up materials like shredded food boxes and cardboard, the sound of scurrying in the walls,, and the smell of ammonia caused by their urine.

If you discover any of these signs, it is likely that a rodent infestation is going on, and you must address it immediately.

Addressing the infestation

The actions you will take to address rats and mice will generally be the same for both. Note that when you do discover any of the signs, limit yourself to a maximum of one week for DIY solutions.

The first thing you should do is look for exposed food sources and have them cleaned up and put away immediately. Exposing them in places, like cupboards, will allow the pests to get to them quickly, eat away at your precious food, and leave harmful pathogens behind.

The second thing you should do is to look for their access points. This can include holes in your cupboards, behind appliances, and so on. Once you find any, you can block it up using a few things like steel wool and caulk. For rats, they love to travel through drainage and sewage pipes. Since you cannot block these, you will need to call in pest control to address those possible entry holes.

Speaking of pest control, if you cannot control and eliminate infestation within a week, hire expert help. That way, you will limit the damage you will have to pay for later and ensure the mice and rats do not produce more offspring and become more difficult problems to deal with.

Conclusion

If you spot any of the signs that can indicate a rodent infestation, it’s important to act immediately. Waiting too long will only put you and your property at greater risk. Also, if you do not think you can tackle the issue all by yourself, do not hesitate to phone pest control experts. They will drop by and quickly address the problem for you. Not only that, but they will give you helpful advice to ensure your home stays pest-free for as long as possible.

We at Willis Pest Control are local pest control experts in the West Midlands, are ready to address any pest issues you might be facing. Contact us today and get your pest problem sorted!

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In order to avoid any mishaps with sanitary investigations, do your best as a business owner to manage the cleanliness and maintenance of your property to provide the best services possible. Some of these include training employees to study early warning signs and take measures to prevent infestations. 

When it comes to mice, there are some signs that they give off when they are present. Here are a few:

The Presence Of Mice Droppings

These are often easy to spot, as they look like rice grains, but are black in colour. You will often find these in corners of rooms, or dark and hidden spots in your establishment. Sometimes, you may find them in drawers or cabinets. When these appear, a mouse is surely somewhere around your property, which makes it time for you to check for any mice living within your walls.

Gnawing And Bite Marks

Rodents are known to have strong teeth that can gnaw on wooden furniture and even food items and packaging in rooms and pantries. Inspect the frames of beds, bedside tables, chair legs and other wooden items for bite marks, as these normally indicate the presence of mice. If your property is particularly old, be especially thorough during your inspection. Mice love to make homes in places like these because of the abundance of old items that they can chew on and build their nests out of. 

Foul Odours Are Recurring

Mice are filthy, as they go running around different dirty areas and even go trash diving. They don’t exactly bathe, so the stench from garbage and sewage they get from their activities often reeks. You will know if you start smelling odd scents in your establishments, as well as marks on the walls that come from their fur rubbing off them. The smells can range from mild garbage scents to the unpleasant odour of a dead animal. There are also chances that mice can die while inside your walls, which emits the smell of a rotting carcass and is very, very unpleasant. 

You’ll Hear Sounds Coming From The Walls And Ceilings

In some cases, guests may hear running and bumping noises within the walls of their hotel room. When you hear scampering sounds from areas that don’t sound like it comes from people, chances are that mice are present. These pests often like to make their homes in the walls or ceilings of places because they are hard to reach and are the perfect breeding ground. Chances are, their movements can be heard late at night to early morning when these nocturnal creatures are fully active. 

Damaged Items For Mice Nests

Mice will normally make nests for their babies as they reproduce further, so be on the lookout for damaged fabrics, insulation, missing fibres from furniture and more. These are used to build a nest with insulation to raise their newborns, which is something you will want to stop as soon as possible.

Conclusion

Knowing if you have a mouse infestation is normally the easiest to tell because of all the signs they leave behind when they are present. The best way to deal with mice infestations, or any kind of pest, is to take preventive measures. This can be done by regularly scheduling pest control inspections from your local professional, and have your establishment cleaned regularly and administering cleanliness guidelines. Don’t let pests get out of hand and always remember that preventing pests is better than dealing with them fully down the line. 

Businesses struggling with commercial pest control in the UK should not despair. With us at Willis Pest Control, we offer top-tier pest control services with a wide range of accreditations!

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Store Food Properly

Probably the simplest way to dissuade mice from making their stay within your property permanent is to remove their access to food. Mice primarily enjoy grains, nuts, and cereal and will use their sharp teeth to tear through even the thickest of packaging. Tamper-proof containers can go a long way when it comes to protecting food and getting into the habit of putting away any opened goods can sometimes be all it takes to drive the mouse population elsewhere. While this method is super simple and can end up working, this isn’t always the case and mice may find some other way to source food.

Mice Repellent Scents

To compensate for their poor eyesight, mice have a great sense of smell, a characteristic they commonly use to locate food and identify predators. While this is a great skill in the wilderness, the home has a great many scents both pleasant and not that can potentially make their stay rather unpleasant. Essential oils are a great way to drive out mice with them particularly hating the scent of peppermint, cloves, cayenne. For something even simpler, why not use apple cider, bleach, vinegar, or toothpaste, put a little of the scent onto a cotton ball and place them around entry points or around the perimeter of your property.

Cat and Cat Goods

Historically, before the era of essential oils and tamper-proof containers, property owners used cats to hunt mice. At least a part of their continued success as a species is due to how effective they were at this task. While many modern-day domestic cats haven’t felt the need to truly go and hunt, they still have that natural hunter instinct that allows them to triumph over even the densest of mouse populations. If getting a cat isn’t a viable option for your property there are alternatives that are also pretty effective. If you know someone that has a cat, humbly ask them to borrow some used cat litter which can be placed around the property. While this might not be as effective as actually getting a cat, many mice might leave purely by smelling the ‘cat goods’.

Contact Willis Pest Control

At Willis Pest Control we are specialists in providing eclectic pest control solutions across Birmingham and the Midlands. For help in dealing with Rats, Wasps, Fleas, Cockroaches, Mice, Squirrels, Ants, and Bed Bugs, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our expert Willis Pest Control team, give us a call on 0121 588 5258 or 07305 518033.

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