All Hands on Deck: Training Your Maintenance Staff on Pest Prevention

While your pest control provider will check your property on a regularly scheduled basis, it can be challenging to watch over it in between service visits. There are several ways to expand your pest control coverage with a little help from your maintenance staff. 

Best way to involve your maintenance team? Get them to care. While no one wants a rat accompanying them to the supply room, you have to help your maintenance staff stay motivated to play a part in your pest prevention plan:

• Share why it matters. Telling staff about the risks pests pose can give them a deeper understanding of how pests can compromise staff, customer and property safety.

• Assign roles and responsibilities. Having pest-sighting protocols and designated areas of responsibility boosts confidence in your team to help get the job done.

Once your maintenance staff is on-board, they can integrate proactive pest management tasks into their regular maintenance duties, like: 

• Caulking and covering outlets or exposed utility lines.  

• Applying door sweeps or weather stripping to all exterior doors. 

• Repairing all leaky drains and pipes to help reduce sources of moisture. 

• Sealing all vents, screens and windows to prevent entry points. 

And be sure to have them check common hot spots for pest activity, such as:

• Property Perimeters: Checking outside, and the surrounding area, is vital to helping prevent pests from entering your facility in the first place.

• Dining Areas: Common areas like kitchens, breakrooms and dining rooms are the food courts of the pest world.

• Restrooms: Washrooms and drains provide a source of water and allow pests to multiply.

• Service Entrances: Shipping and loading docks are transportation hubs for pests; they’ll move in, and then move on to other parts of the property.

• Storage Areas: The dark, confined spaces of closets and storage spaces are perfect places for pests to set up camp.

Lastly, timely and accurate documentation is the final and most crucial step in ensuring your facility receives the proper pest treatment. In the event of a pest sighting, encourage your staff to immediately report the activity and document details—such as time, location and type of pest—to ensure your pest control provider receives the most accurate information. 

Take your pest control program to the next level by training all of your employees—regardless of department—using our Staff Training Checklist, which goes in-depth on how to help keep pests in their place.