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Let’s face it- no client or employee wants to do business in a place that looks overrun with creepy-crawly pests. Besides being unsightly and unprofessional, it’s a potential health risk. Therefore, keeping your office bug free is extremely important in keeping your staff, clients and neighbors happy and healthy. Here are 5 tips to help keep your space as great as the company inside.
- The first step in keeping pests out of your office is to make sure the exterior is maintained and in good shape. A damage-free exterior won’t give pests the access points they need to get inside. Perform regular maintenance on your entryways, windows, siding, roof, and other exterior areas as soon as you notice any damage. Keep any landscaping and lawn areas clean and trimmed regularly, and don’t allow their associated debris to accumulate. Keep lids on exterior garbage cans, and closed covers on larger garbage containers. Weatherproofing your exterior and sealing holes and cracks with caulk and foam will close these common insect & rodent points of entry.
- Office kitchens and pantries can be a breeding ground for pests. Ask employees to clean up after themselves and provide conveniently located trash cans with lids that are emptied by your cleaning staff on a regular basis- daily, if possible. Initiate policy that states employees should clean daily snack or food debris off their workspaces, and clean out spoiled or old food from refrigerators, to prevent food scraps from remaining over long periods of time.
- Mosquitoes lay their eggs on water, and rodents & bugs need a regular source of it, so make sure any receptacle that could collect water is emptied regularly. This will keep bugs from an indoor water source and keep mosquitoes from hatching and affecting your office, or attracting other pests.
- Check indoor plants. Although they’re very beneficial to human emotional and physical well-being, office plants can lead to pests if not properly cared for. Over-watering can breed fungus gnats, which feed on algae, fungi and plant roots. Not only can these pests wreak havoc on your plants, but once their eggs hatch, they grow wings and spread pollens which can lead to mold and further infestation. Mosquitoes are also very attracted to the standing water and soil in an over-watered plant, which provides an ideal breeding ground.
- Have your staff regularly “tidy and toss” unnecessary debris from around the office. Have them regularly go through their desks and the office’s storage areas, to eliminate possible infestation starting-points. Plastic or metal containers discourage pests, as compared to cardboard boxes. Paper lice, sometimes known as mites or bookworms, are born in stationary bundles of paper kept in dark, damp conditions. These lice can be a food source for other pests, so eliminating them is vital. Rodents can also burrow and breed in cardboard enclosures. If you’re storing anything that a rodent or pest would like to call home, put it in a sealed box or container that they can’t get into.
These simple and easy preemptive measures can go a long way toward minimizing the chances of a bug or rodent problem in your workplace.
