This article asks: what problems do rats cause a business? Bournemouth Pest Solutions offer rodent pest control throughout Poole, Bournemouth, Dorset and Hampshire. Find out how rodent infestation can damage your business and the types of business effected by rodent infestation.

How Rodent Infestation Can Damage Your Business

When it comes to keeping customers happy and building a good reputation for your business, you have a lot to be wary of. Your managing staff and marketing team have a great deal to consider to attract customers. Ensuring they are safe in your establishment environment. The last thing you want to worry about is a rodent infestation. It can be tempting, especially during peak or stressful times, to convince yourself that you didn't see that mouse scuttling out of the pantry. 

However, this won't make it any easier to deal with, and in some cases, it may make it worse. It's paramount to have all these issues seen by pest professionals as quickly as possible. Infestations and diseases spread rapidly throughout your staff and customers. It will have an enormous impact on your company's reputation and profitability.

Costing You Money

You may have to spend money investing in professional pest control services and replacing any contaminated products, neglecting the issue will cost you even more money. 

Rodents are attracted to business spaces, especially those that make and sell food products. They may not eat all your stock, yet their diseased paws and droppings could contaminate them anyway. This means you can no longer serve them to customers. It will leave you spending more on ingredients and investing in more products, as those will no longer be adequate.

Health Risk

As a whole, rodents are quite harmless, as long as they avoid your employees, customers, and the surfaces of your products. They have a tendency to attack out of fear when they feel threatened. Bites from squirrels and mice are typically harmless. However, rat bites can spread a range of diseases, including Hantavirus and Leptospirosis.

Unsanitary

Whilst rodents scurry across the halls and countertops of your establishment, their paws carry bacteria and germs that transfer onto all surfaces they touch. They also are known to spread disease via their droppings and urine, and this can further contaminate foods and surfaces. 

Building Structure

Whilst rats and mice are small, they can create plenty of damage if they invade your property. Rodents tend to chew through wiring, they leave dirt and greasy marks across your flooring and walls, and can even gnaw holes in the floorboards.

Rodents Problems In Businesses

The reputation of your business is highly sensitive at all times, which is why you must take action whenever there are signs or sightings of pests. Businesses with rodent problems are typically associated with various other factors, such as ill health, uncleanliness, contamination, and poor hygiene. A reputation like this will usually stick, you may have even experienced this in your own town or city. 

We all know an establishment that had an infestation problem in the past, and the word travels fast. Customers will avoid your company as much as possible. Your business's profitability will be impacted dramatically, and you could be asked by the local council or HSE to close down.

Hospitality

If any customers or employees encounter a rodent, such as a live rat, a mouse, or a squirrel, or their droppings, you must contact pest control. By this point, they could be at risk of contracting many diseases that they spread, which could lose your company more customers and revenue. You'll need to take action as quickly as possible if a rodent or droppings have been spotted in any property providing hospitality. 

Business owners in hospitality have a duty of care to ensure their staff and customers are safe in their establishment. If you work in or own a care home, you and your employees must be especially cautious concerning pests and rodents. Your residents are likely to be frail, weak, or of ill health, meaning they are at larger risk of being susceptible to the diseases they spread.

As a part of the hospitality industry, owners have the duty to protect the livelihood of their customers and working staff. It's best to keep your restaurant as hygienic as possible and keep all stock locked away when not in use.

If you do experience issues with rodents, you must contact pest control services immediately. The spread of disease could put your whole business at risk.

You may be asked to pay a costly fine for the damages, and in the worst-case scenario, your business may be shut down permanently.

Factories And Warehouses

Rodents like rats and mice are typically known for targeting numerous industrial areas. They utilise these spaces to create nests. 

Factories, warehouses, and other similar spaces make ideal homes for mice and rats, as they promise shelter, warmth, and typically, a consistent supply of food and drinks. 

Any spilt or pooling water or food products are the most accessible for rats and mice to consume. You must be careful that products are properly stored away when you have locked up your stock. Some product packaging can often be torn and nibbled through and they can use them for nesting materials. The best locations for rodents to nest in are the dark corners that are secluded from other areas where they can build homes.

When it comes to the hospitality industry, rodents can destroy and contaminate a broad range of food products. This will mean you'll have to discard and throw them out. If this occurs, you'll experience a loss of revenue, and you may even lose customers and staff, as this may make them uncomfortable. 

If the machinery used to manufacture products or keep them chilled involves wiring and cables, you must be on high alert. Rodents can chew through them, and this will result in costly replacements or repairs.

Rodents are not ideal for those with flourishing trees and crops as they scavenge for food and dig nests in the soil you have previously sown.

Any baby trees that have just been planted are at risk, as during this stage they are soft wood, making them easy for animals to chew through.

A loss of or an extreme reduction of crops is detrimental to farmers that rely on healthy, growing produce to make a profit.

Rodents like rats and mice, and other pests like some species of birds carry diseases that spread across the plant life and this can cause them to die. It also makes them unable to be harvested and sold.

Farmers know that the planting times for numerous crops can be sensitive. You can't always plant more right away, as some flourish better in specific seasons. The harvest will be lost for the year, and it will all be down to the pests.

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Bournemouth Pest Solutions offers comprehensive rodent pest control services to domestic and commercial clients in Poole and throughout the surrounding areas. Our experienced pest controllers can effectively deal with any infestation you may be facing.