A cockroach is attracted to food and also decaying or rotting food. Likewise, it can live in a clean environment and a filthy one. If you run a food joint or a restaurant, it’s vital to maintain high standards of hygiene. A cockroach can embarrass you as it can crisscross the table when your customers are just preparing to enjoy their delicious meals.
The next thing that comes to your customer’s mind is that your hotel is filthy, food is unhygienic and the kitchen is dirty. Sites like wavepest.com have all the information on how you can get rid of pests. In this review, we shall examine how to get rid of cockroaches in your restaurant.
Where to find cockroaches
Cockroaches hide under tables, sinks, drawers, stores only to resurface at night. When they cannot withstand pangs of hunger, and there is the aroma of tasty fried food just on the top of the hideout table, they will craw out to disbelieve your customers.
In a heavy infestation, they appear in curtains and to a very embarrassing scenario even craw on your guests’ coats or the floor. Cockroaches can make you lose customers. Control is therefore essential, and eradication should be done once you realize infestation.
What attracts cockroaches?
These insects will be attracted to dirty utensils or bread crumbs or any food particles left on the tables or floor. Uncovered food and water leakage pipes, wet bathrooms and doormats can attract them too. Even in utility holes which are damp and wet can offer excellent habitat and hideout.
A cockroach can survive for long without food, but it cannot without water. So a leaking sink drainage pipe would sustain it no matter what other restraining measures you put in place. Follow these methods to control and eradicate them.
Leaking pipes
Cockroaches will thrive in a moist and humid environment. It gives them a chance of survival even when food isn’t forthcoming. Ensure all the leaking pipes are repaired when leakage is noticed.
Draining sink pipes
Run your hot tap water through the pipes first for about five minutes. Then pour 2 liters of boiling water into the sink to remove all the clogged fats and oils from the drainage pipe. It will also help in killing the live cockroaches hiding there.
Add a mixture of baking powder and vinegar to clean the pipes. It will remove all the dirt in the drainage, and the cockroaches will have nowhere to hide or feed on.
New stock
Inspect the new consignment of shipped food, especially the one packed in carton boxes. It could be the carrier of cockroaches. It will also enable you to spot any other pest like bedbugs which may find their way into your restaurant.
Once you notice an infestation, embark on a suitable method to eradicate the pests well in time. Remove the shipment from the cartons as keeping them will enhance their breeding. Transfer them into clear plastic bins in which the material is not conducive to cockroaches. You’ll also spot any pest that may have gone unnoticed.
Staff
Staff can be a source of cockroaches and other pests through their personal effects like handbags. To prevent the pests being brought into your restaurant, maintain a designated room where all staff is required to leave their personal effects before reporting to work stations.
Maintenance
Ensure all the cracks on the drawers are sealed to deny them a hiding area. Cockroaches also hide in cupboards joints and crevices and those corners should be left clear and visible for treatment and proper inspection.
Remember the roaches prefer hiding from the human view, and if you block the corners, then you’re facilitating them to keep you off from the view. If there are spaces left on the perimeter walls where water pipes join to ensure the gaps are sealed to prevent the infestation from the neighborhood.
Cleanliness
Sweep all the food particles on the floor dining tables or food preparation tables after use. These are the particles that feed the cockroaches. Ensure utensils are cleaned and stored regularly to avoid a pile-up in sinks.
Cover all the foods that remain as the aroma attracts the cockroaches. Dustbins should be tightly covered and emptied periodically and cleaned and dried to keep away any moisture.
Fumigation
Fumigation should be done with care not to use pesticides that may come into contact with human food and bring health complications. Diatomaceous earth can be sprinkled where the infestation is spotted. It’s natural and non-poisonous.
It dries the outer cover of the cockroach, exposing the body moisture, which results in instant death. It’s scent-free and is become more popular as most insects have developed resistance to pesticides. Where infestation is uncontrollable, you may consider consulting pest control experts to handle the situation professionally.
Boric acid is also effective in killing cockroaches, but care should be taken to prevent small children from eating and exposing them to risks of health problems.
Gel bait
Gel bait is also another method where you place the gel bail to attract cockroaches. How does it work? The gel is poisonous to pests, and once they feed on it, it dies. If it finds its way into the hideout, it will eventually die, and when a healthy cockroach fees on the dead, it also dies and in the process, the whole population is eliminated. It’ll take a considerable period before you find a live cockroach.
Conclusion
Cockroaches spare no home; whether clean or filthy it can stray from your dirty neighbor and come into your clean restaurant. Prevention and control is the better option rather than waiting for real infestation and embark on eradication method, which might take longer to solve your problem. The reputation of restaurants is based on good food, quality service and above all its cleanliness and high standard of hygiene. Don’t allow cockroaches to cuts short of your dream. Control and eradicate them in totality.
