PESTY Protect your brand’s integrity with these expert tips to prevent and control pests
It’s every c-store operator’s nightmare: A viral video starring an army of cockroaches or a family of rats parading through your products. Not only are pests and rodents bad for business, but they’re hazardous to staff and customer health. There are ways to spoil this pest party, however. We consulted four experts across the country for their top tips to safely protect the integrity of your business from creepy crawlers of all kinds.
A growing problem for c-store owners “The volume of mouse, rat and wildlife issues out there is exploding, year after year,” says Bill Dowd, owner of Hamilton, Ont.-based Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control. “Rodents carry more than 60 diseases that are transmissible to humans, so there’s a health and safety
26
May | June 2022
|
risk for the store owner, the employees, and their customers.” Pests will damage or devour your product, eating into your bottom line and your reputation.
Don’t let them in C-store owners should proactively hire a pest company to find all potential entry points pests can use to get into the store, suggests entomologist Taz Stuart, director of technical operations at Poulin’s Pest Control in Winnipeg. “Make sure foundations, cracks and crevices are filled so there’s no access for rodents or other pests; that includes using rodent-proofing material like Xcluder,” says Stuart. Inside, make sure all doors—front, back, side and receiving—are covered with mechanical devices and bait stations where required. Get a pest’s eye view by inspecting the bottom of your exterior doors, suggests Jun
Convenience Store News Canada
Bukht, associate certified entomologist at Major Pest Control in Edmonton. “Old weather stripping doesn’t work well; if you can see light coming through or you can put a pencil through, mice can get in,” says Bukht. “If your gap’s the size of a quarter, rats can enter, too.” Make your facility unattractive to them by reducing clutter and making sure there’s not a lot of brush right up against the building. Set up mechanical and glue traps throughout the building, where back entrances meet the walls. “Some people do it with weather prevention in mind, and they don’t realize how tightly it needs to be sealed if you want to keep ants out, for example,” says Moncton-based entomologist Sean Rollo, technical director for Orkin Canada. “We see people using expanding foam to seal gaps, but that’s not going to stop rodents—they’ll just burrow right through that.”
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
BY W E N DY H E L F E N BAU M
CCentral.ca
