Just like your home, a hotel is prone to attack from creepy pests of all types. It doesn’t matter how big or classy the hotel is. Pests such as rats, mice, cockroaches, bed bugs, palmetto bugs, and flies.
Although the mere sight of pests can be a nuisance, it is the damage they cause on the property and the reputation of the hotel that should worry you more. It is, therefore, important that the management of hotels strive to spot and get rid of pests before they cause greater damage.
Hotels are more vulnerable to pest infestation due to frequent traveler turnover, availability of food, and less than adequate preventive measures.
How to Spot Common Household Pests in Hotels
Rodents
Like the other common household pests, rats and mice can be guests in hotels albeit lurking in the hidden corners and shadows. Rodents cause damage by gnawing into fixtures, electric equipment, and causing damage to the walls. If they go undetected, rodents can lead to salmonellosis, leptospirosis, Lyme, toxoplasmosis, and other diseases.
It is easy to spot rodents in hotels. All the cleaning staff has to do is look out for signs such as smudge marks, urine stains, and droppings in the rooms and hallways. It is also easy to hear the sound of rodents gnawing in the walls deep in the night when people are asleep.
Apart from securing the kitchen, food stores, and restaurant, care should be taken to seal off windows, screens, vents, and cracks to prevent rodents from entering the hotel. If there is any garbage around the hotel, get rid of it since this could attract the pesky rodents.
Palmetto Bugs
Also known as the American cockroaches, palmetto bugs thrive in the dark and damp places of the hotel. Just like other types of cockroaches, they love feeding on most types of food in the hotel including fish, soap, bread, cheese, sugar, and paper. Their most common habitats include around bathtubs, boiler rooms, and sewers.
Because of their love for sewers and decaying food, palmetto bugs do carry disease-causing pathogens and can also lead to allergic reactions. Some of the diseases they cause include diarrhea, food poisoning, and more gastroenteritis symptoms.
Their molten skins and excrement are culprits when it comes to causing asthma, blockage of nose passages, sneezing, skin rashes, and other allergic reactions.
You can spot palmetto bugs inside the home in drains, crawl spaces, around the bathtub, basement, and near garbage cans. Outside the home, they can commonly be seen in sewers, roof shingles, woodpiles, and the underside of palm leaves.
Like other pest control methods, palmetto bugs elimination can be done either using chemical or without chemicals. You may want to apply dust in the places where the bugs are most likely to be found such as underneath washers, cabinets, cupboards, wall voids, underneath baseboards, and behind walls.
The other way to get rid of palmetto bugs is to maintain proper sanitation by getting rid of food, water, and places where they are likely to nest.
Cockroaches
The mere sight of a cockroach crawling on the wall, dining table or nightstand can severely damage a customer’s impression of the hotel. Just like rodents, cockroaches are attracted to food and decaying matter. Having them around is not only disgusting, but they are also carriers of bacteria like Salmonella, E.Coli, Staphylococcus, and Listeria.
In the hotel, you will find them hiding in dark and moist areas such as kitchen sinks, fridges, food storage, and basically behind any large appliance. Common signs of a cockroach infestation in the hotel include seeing the bugs crawling on the walls, roach feces, roach egg cases, and if the infestation is quite big, you will smell their pungent, musty order.
You can buy roach treatment from your local grocery store or hire a professional exterminator to get rid of them completely.
BedBugs
Once inside a hotel, bedbugs can spread from room to room, either through vacuum cleaners, pipes, clothing, and luggage. If you have spotted a few bedbugs in your hotel, chances are that you may be dealing with a bigger problem and should therefore consider calling a professional exterminator before things get out of hand. You don’t want to ruin your hotel’s reputation after all.
Common warning signs of a bedbug infestation include rust-colored spots on furniture, black spots (bedbug faeces) on sheets, pillows, and mattress covers, bed bug exoskeletons, and a musty odor. You will find them hiding in the headboard, mattress, narrow spaces in the bed, as well as in the piping.
Wrapping It Up
Rodents and palmetto bugs thrive on the abundant food in the hotels. If you can find a way of stopping the pests from accessing food supplies, then you can be sure of getting rid of them.