Help! My kitchen is being overrun. A guide for Restaurants and Residences.

When it comes to fighting bugs or rodents in your kitchen you have to try to think like the pest you are trying to eliminate.  All pests ultimately have the same needs: Food and Shelter.  So, for instance, when you are fighting cockroaches or mice, you have to see things like they might see them.

1. Where do they live?
2. How are they entering the premises?
3. Where are they finding food?

In order to adequately discover the answers those questions you will most likely have to get dirty.  Get out your flashlight and get low to the ground. For instance, What’s under the refrigerator and oven? Have the children dumped half a box of cereal in the pantry and covered it with miscellaneous items to hide the mess? What about the kick plate below the sink and the edge of the door for dishwasher? If your kitchen garbage is the kind that pulls out when was the last time the actual basket was taken out and the empty drawer vacuumed? Pests need food. A thorough cleaning of the premises is an essential step towards controlling them.

While you are down there, look for ways that the intruders are getting into the kitchen.  Ants, for instance, rarely live in the house.  Ants will travel up to 300 feet to forage for food and once they find it they will leave a pheromone trail so their buddies can find it also.  DO NOT  wash the trail away, use it against them.

Are there any damp places around sinks, dishwashers or refrigerators? Centipedes like water. Call a plumber if you have to, but at the very least try to dry out the area with a fan. Once wetness is stopped, a foam can be applied to seal up any holes that may be entry points.

Cockroaches like to live in drop ceilings of commercial kitchens. Push up the panels and apply bait above the panels, but not above areas where temperatures reach 120 degrees or more like stoves, because the bait might liquefy and drip.

If you decide to catch mice; check the traps every 24 hours. (Here’s a hint, they love peanut butter).

Lastly and most important when applying pesticides READ THE LABEL. Apply pesticides in accordance with the labeling for a safe and pest free kitchen.

PesTecs B-3326