How To Keep Rats And Mice Out Of Your Manufacturing Facility

There are many ways that vermin can find their way into your manufacturing facility. Thankfully, if you utilize preventative measures and take corrective actions, you can keep them at bay. When you run a large facility, the last thing you want is bugs or rodents taking up residence.

Sadly, they always find a way to get inside. The key to solving your problem is to find out how they’re getting in and how you can stop their reign of terror. Your facility may seem airtight to you, but breaches or gaps you don’t see can cause you problems.

Pests can easily slip through the cracks within these openings that you can’t see, and they will become your worst nightmare. The ironic part is that they don’t need much room to get inside, as their bodies can maneuver through spaces as small as 6 mm. Tight spaces are no deterrent for them, as it’s their preference.

The smaller the space, the more the rodent feels protection, as most of its predators don’t have such abilities. Your manufacturing facility can’t be sealed entirely, though you try your hardest. Awareness of possible entry points is the key to gaining control of your pest problems.

Examining Your Facilities

As a professional pest control company in New Jersey, we often see weak or missing door seals that provide an entry point. If pieces of the rubber sealing around your door break or become loose, it’s an opportunity for vermin to enter.

The best thing to do is to examine your warehouse facilities using the rationale of a smaller critter. If you walk around and see nothing that stands out to you, then you need to look again. You want to identify anything about the width of a pencil that they can slide through. These access points are places that so many people don’t notice, and they are often right in front of your eyes.

The shipping and receiving docks have doors that open and close multiple times throughout the day. Every time these doors open, you don’t need to worry about the holes, as it’s an entry point wide open. It’s essential to close these doors when not in use. While they must be available to conduct business, it’s always best to ensure that the area around these doors is not welcoming to your local mice and rats.

Roofing

Another big potential problem that warehouse facilities face is promptly addressing roofing issues. In these larger buildings, the HVAC system is on top of the roof, with ductwork and pipes running from the outside to the inside. These are also prime areas of entry.

Vents need to have screens on them to ensure that nothing can get through the ductwork. These screens keep things large and small from gaining access to the building. Remember, an air handler has a sucking function, and it can suck insects and all sorts of bugs into your building when these screens have the tiniest holes in them.

Around the bottom plates of the ducts is a spot often overlooked by many. The seals that go around this area usually wear out and need to be replaced, so this is something that you should check. Another significant issue is the floor drains.

Drains

Drains are a hotbed for activity. The slits in these drains and the piping around them often are easy entry points. This article focuses on mice and rats, but these drains are a massive attraction to water bugs, cockroaches, and drain flies. If you want to prevent pest problems in your warehouse, then you need the proper drainage design.

The drain design is essential to ensure it reduces problems and doesn’t add to them. For instance, all drains should have baskets that easily capture solids and allow liquids to pass. They should also have grates that will enable you to remove them quickly. These solids can attract pests, especially if there’s any food particles in them.

Cleaning and monitoring the drains is an essential part of preventative pest control. Additionally, make sure you have one-way drain valves installed. These will block any pests from entering these pipes and let the water flow downward uninhibited.

Building Condition

The condition of your building is vital to the fight against pests. If your facility is in good shape, you’ll likely have fewer issues or places where pests can gain entry. When there’s older construction, or you’ve had to retrofit equipment into your building, it can cause unnecessary issues.

As pest professionals, we’ve seen buildings that are older but well-maintained. These facilities had few pest issues because they had great preventative care and were on top of any problems. On the other hand, we’ve also seen brand new buildings with more holes than Swiss cheese.

The truth is it doesn’t matter about the age of your facility as much as how you take care of it. Some facilities, such as those constructed from corrugated metal, are more challenging to seal than others. This leaves gaps that allow pests to enter with ease. So, keeping up on maintenance items is imperative.

The Problem with Pallet Mice

Sometimes it’s not gaps and breaches in the building that cause the problem, but it comes from what’s brought into the facility that’s your biggest concern. Pallets are a great place for mice to hitchhike and build nests. In a warehouse that stores food, they can easily climb in and eat until they can’t eat anymore. Additionally, they can use paper and plastics to build their nests within the pallets.

Even if you don’t bring mice in on the pallets, it’s an excellent place for them to hide. Make a habit of examining the pallets you’re getting into your facility. Look for any bags or boxes that have been ripped or chewed through. You can usually detect rodent activity by quickly looking at the pallet. If you can stop them at the entry point, you’ll have a better chance of controlling things.

Learning the Travel Patterns of the Rodents

Mice and rats use travel patterns to get around. They have oil on their fur called sebum that leaves marks along walls and floors as they travel. You might not notice these marks unless you look closely, but it indicates a rodent issue.

When dealing with rats, they have poor eyesight, so they use these sebum marks to help them navigate. If you see an area with excessive spots, it means this is the most traveled path for rodents. This is where you should put traps and bait.

Rats tend to be very suspicious critters, and they won’t be allured by a chunk of cheese or a swab of peanut butter. While you might capture some mice this way, you won’t have a rat think twice about it. First, it’s likely the rat won’t see it, and they will be suspicious if they do. Second, if it’s not in their traveled paths, they will avoid it.

Humans and the animal kingdom are similar in many ways. For instance, you have a particular path or roadway that you travel to work every day. You don’t like it when you take a detour or travel roads you’re not accustomed to driving. Rodents are similar; once they find a safe path and are not worried about predators, they don’t like to veer off their course.

Rodent Chewing Power

Even if you have an opening that’s not big enough for them to get through, suitable materials can allow them to chew their way inside. Drywall is no match for a mouse or rat; even cartoons have depicted mouse holes in the walls for decades. This is not fictional material, as when rodents have moved in, they will make entry or exit holes in your walls.

Most warehouses don’t have a lot of drywall, but it could be an issue in office areas or other spaces that are more finished. Both mice and rats have two strong teeth in the front that can chew through almost anything. The following things are not safe from rodents:

Plastic
Fiberglass
Spray foam (insulation)
Electrical, phone, and cable wires
Aluminum
Rubber
Drywall or gypsum board
Wood

Now, thankfully there are a few things their teeth can’t chew through, which include the following:

Metal (including steel wool)
Glass
Concrete or rocks (block foundations)
Bricks
Copper

Spraying foam insulation in those gaps will not keep them out. They can chew that out in a matter of seconds. Use steel wool to help block holes until you can find a more permanent solution.

Sealing the Gap

Pest control in a warehouse facility is a 24×7 job. You can’t take a break or ease up because you think things are under control. When you let your guard down, even briefly, they will take advantage of those moments of weakness.

It would help if you decided what measures you feel comfortable using to take care of your rodent problem. Some folks like to use bait and keep it around to keep things under control. However, others know these vermin crawl back into the walls to die.

There’s nothing you can do to lessen the smell of a decaying mouse or rat in your walls, and it can draw other potential pests to the area. Additionally, your employees have to breathe in all those toxins for days. Until the body decomposes, it’s going to smell.

There are many things to consider for preventative maintenance and handling an ongoing problem. We want to help you keep your warehouse facility sanitary, especially when storing food items. Allow us to assist you in keeping your building rodent-free. Our technicians are well-trained in handling these issues, and we can advise you and point out areas of concern that you likely haven’t considered. Call us today to see what we can do to help!

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