Darrin Pierce, owner of Berwick Pest Control in Victoria, shares an account of managing a serious cockroach infestation at a restaurant using a multi-product approach.
Commercial pest control is a significant segment of the professional pest management market. Protecting businesses such as restaurants, bakeries, nursing homes, hospitals, warehouses, factories and office buildings often requires different products and techniques compared to those used in residential pest management. A good workplace is a pest free and clean environment.
An integrated pest management (IPM) approach coupled with good hygiene is the recommended way of protecting commercial premises from pest infestations. IPM practices include monitoring, prevention of access and common sense environmental sensitivity when controlling for pests.
The issue with commercial establishments, especially restaurants, is that they generally open early and close late, which makes it increasingly harder to apply IPM practices and maintain cleanliness and hygiene. Darrin Pierce, the owner of Berwick Pest Control in Victoria (pictured above) gives a great example of managing this issue in a busy local restaurant.
“The restaurant had become very popular and was fully booked for lunch and dinner seven days a week,” said Mr Pierce. “Staff would go to work in the late mornings and clean up the previous night’s dirty dishes, as they were too busy and too tired to clean up late at night before going home. The next day they would start the process all over again!
“German cockroaches were coming out at night and enjoying a feeding frenzy on the food scraps, leftovers and dirty dishes. The cockroach population was also growing in number.”
Things had to change – and quickly. After a thorough inspection, Mr Pierce presented a hygiene report to the restaurant owner, highlighting areas that required attention and recommending the implementation of an IPM approach to gain control of the cockroaches.
The first thing to change was the habit of leaving dirty dishes and food scraps out in the open after closing time. The kitchen had to be cleaned after each sitting, i.e. lunch and dinner.
Secondly, Mr Pierce went about sealing all cracks and crevices and possible entry points where the cockroaches were gaining easy access to the kitchen.
“Once the main food source had been removed and a new level of hygiene had been introduced, controlling the cockroach population became much more manageable,” he explained.
“I started to gain further control by applying a surface spray of Temprid 75 Residual Insecticide on the kitchen floor area and Maxforce Gold Cockroach Gel in the areas that the cockroaches were most likely to inhabit. “Due to the domino effect of Maxforce Gold and the knockdown and residual of Temprid 75, I was able to reduce the infestation significantly. I’m now back to a monthly maintenance call cycle with this customer.”
Temprid 75 is the perfect surface spray to treat cockroaches and other crawling insects that come out at night. This insecticide combines two powerful and effective residual insecticides, beta-cyfluthrin and imidacloprid, to deliver excellent control.
Maxforce Gold contains a tailor-made bait matrix specifically to cater for a balanced range of cockroach dietary preferences and is recommended for clean-out jobs.
The combination of these two products used in conjunction with a range of non-chemical measures allows pests to be controlled in even the most challenging commercial accounts.
David Fielder, Territory Business Development Manager – PPM (VIC/SA/TAS), Bayer
