Mice in a restaurant? They have to go

Mice in a restaurant can be hard to deal with.  In fact, there have been entire tutorials written about it.  However, if you’re a restaurant owner reading this short post may help you.

First, please understand this.  When servicing mice in a restaurant there has to be client cooperation. In the absence of that any pest management program is going to fail.  Guaranteed. With that said all restaurants have competing food sources.  These food sources if not cleaned up will inhibit the ability of our service people to catching and riding your facility of mice.

Cleaning a restaurant to stop rodents

This post is about how to catch mice in a restaurant, but in order to do that there are things a restaurant owner must do.  The first is that the restaurant must be cleaned.  All restaurants have food that has fallen under and behind equipment.  While these may not seem like food to you and I they’re fine for a rodent.  If you haven’t pulled back shelves or appliances from the wall in 10 years, now is the time to do that.

A mouse’s relationship with food and food storage

Mice, contrary to popular belief are nibblers and are not going to gorge themselves on any one particular food source.  Also, the damage that mice cause is not limited to the food they eat, but rather the food that they contaminate through their droppings and items their body comes in contact with it.  So, it only stands to reason that in order to mitigate the damage mice cause food must be stored properly.  All food storage should be in tight fitting plastic containers and refrigerated when appropriate.

Health inspectors are just doing their job

Catch mice in a restaurant
A covered trap conceals mice.

Recently we received a call from a restaurant owner in our area that they just failed a health inspection.  One of the reasons this happened was because mouse snap traps were out in the open.  Worse there were dead mice on them.  This a red flag for a health inspector that can be avoided by using covered traps like the one pictured to the left.  However, these traps aren’t cheap and can raise the cost of regular and initial services.

Alternatively, a company can provide a mass trapping at night and pick up all the traps on the next business day before the restaurant opens.  It’s surprising how well this works when used in conjunction with cleaning and storing food properly.  We’ve had instances where we put out 50 traps and caught 10 mice in one night.

Additional methods for getting rid of mice and finding how they got in

Trapping is not the only method to exterminate for mice.  In addition to trapping mice many rodenticides are labeled for restaurant use.  These poison baits are best used on the outside and limitedly on the inside.  Having a dead mouse smell in a restaurant is obviously not a good thing.  It’s not true that once mice eat poison bait they look for water and die outside.  After it’s ingested mice will die where they die inside or out.

The final key to rodent control is to find out how mice are getting in.  The most common entrance methods are with deliveries, through utility penetration’s, open doors, broken doors, and doors without door sweeps.  These area are all easily repaired by a pest control company or a handyman.

In the end rodent control in a restaurant can be challenging.  Leaving it to a professional may actually save you time, money and a few headaches.

If you own a CT restaurant and have mice call 1-888-879-6481.  Envirocare Pest Control can help.