Commercial Rodent Control for Akron Businesses

Yes, businesses and landlords call too. Commercial rodent control in Akron covers restaurants, small shops, offices, warehouses and apartment buildings, usually on a regular service schedule.

A business has different pressures than a house. Health inspections, customers, tenants and stock all depend on keeping rodents out. A restaurant on a busy street with a dumpster out back faces different problems than a storage building near the rail line, but both need someone who knows how to work around operating hours. Managers who want to know what they're looking at can start with our rat or mouse guide for Akron buildings.

Restaurants, storefronts and older Akron buildings

Many Akron commercial blocks date from the early twentieth century. Shared walls, old basements and decades of utility work leave plenty of gaps, and the worst of them hide behind stock and old shelving in the basement under the sales floor. Restaurants and bars along busy corridors, like West Market Street in Highland Square or North Main through North Hill, see rats around dumpsters and mice coming through basement walls. Storefronts in Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls deal with the same.

Warehouses and industrial buildings around Akron have large doors, loading docks and pallet storage, all of which help rodents. Dock door seals wear out fast, and a pallet left against an outside wall is a ready-made shelter.

What ongoing service usually includes

Most businesses do better with regular visits than with calling once there's a problem. A tech sets locked, tamper-resistant stations around the outside of the building, traps inside along walls and in storage areas, and logs what they find. Many companies keep service records you can show an inspector.

• Exterior stations along the foundation and by the dumpster
• Traps in kitchens, storerooms and basements
• Sealing around doors, pipes and dock seals
• Notes on sanitation and storage after each visit
• Records of each visit and what was found

Dumpsters, grease and the back door

For restaurants, rats nearly always start out back. A dumpster with a broken lid or a missing drain plug, a grease bin that drips, and a back door propped open during a hot dinner rush all invite them. Rats burrow under the edge of the dumpster pad and wait for dark. Mice ride in with deliveries, tucked in the folds of cardboard cases and the bottoms of produce boxes.

A lot of the fix is housekeeping, and a good tech will say so plainly. Keep the dumpster lid shut and the plug in. Ask the hauler to swap out a damaged container. Break down boxes and get them out of the building. Store dry goods on shelves off the floor and away from the walls so you can see behind them. A door sweep and a self-closing hinge on the back door do more than you'd think.

Landlords and apartment buildings

In a duplex or an apartment building, mice move between units through pipe chases and shared walls. Treating one unit at a time rarely solves it. The building needs to be looked at as a whole, from the basement up. If you're a tenant, let the landlord know. If you own rentals among the Kenmore doubles or anywhere else with older doubles, ask about servicing the whole building. The pages on mouse trapping and removal and sealing cover the methods used.

Turnover is the best time to deal with it. An empty unit lets the tech get into the cabinets, behind the stove and along the baseboards without moving anyone's things. If a tenant moves out and leaves droppings in the kitchen, have it handled before the next one moves in.

Pricing for commercial work depends on the size of the building, the type of business, how often visits happen and how much sealing is needed. The company quotes it after a walk-through. Call and tell us what kind of business it is and what you've seen.

Related: Rat Control, Mouse Control, Rodent Exclusion and Sealing

Serving Highland Square and West Akron, Firestone Park, Goodyear Heights, Kenmore, North Hill, Ellet, Merriman Valley, Cuyahoga Falls, Stow, Barberton.