Cleaning Dirty Britain

 Michael, Mark, Lewis and Marcin from Rentokil Initial Special Cleaning

Last night, Rentokil Initial technicians Michael Rolls, Mark Hardie, Lewis Jones and Marcin Antikiewicz, enjoyed a starring role in the ITV1 show, Dirty Britain. The team had a mammoth job on their hands as they cleared a house packed with bin liners, clothes, furniture, books, newspapers and household waste which should have been despatched to landfill decades ago. Whilst one of the cleaners cautiously peeked inside a cupboard to check for a rat infestation the camera zoomed in on a stained bag held at arms length by one of the cleaners. “I don’t like the colour” he said sniffing. Body fluids was the verdict. Foul this job might be to most of us, these guys are made of stern stuff. From suicide clear-up to removing maggot infested body parts the Rentokil Initial Specialist Hygiene team are thoroughly professional in their approach.   Read More »

Foul Facts About Flies

FliesTwo-winged flies consitute the largest order of insects and there are about 50,000 known species throughout the world. Britain alone has 3000 species of flies. Such a small insect can have an enormous and detrimental impact on human life.

The pathogenic organisms of diseases including malaria, sleeping sickness, onchocerciasis, elephantiasis and yellow fever are carried human-human by blood-sucking dipterous flies. Many other diseases including cholera are transmitted by many species of flies sucking liquid from excreta then settling on human food. It is therefore essential hygiene practice for food preparation areas to employ some method of fly killer. Read More »

Textiles and Bugs

Tom Turner in Rentokil Pest UniformWhilst the pest control side of our business takes care of textile eating pests like moths our sister company, Initial Textiles, provides textile and hygiene services over 100,000 businesses across a diverse range of industries including manufacturing, medical, banking and hospitality. A customer’s first brand touchpoint is often via a uniform. A well laundered uniform gives a worker pride and confidence and often helps maintain health and safety standards. It also tells the customer something about the company they work for. How many uniforms did you notice today? Read More »

Do you want flies with that?

House flyZZZZzzzzzzzt! It’s strangely reassuring, when queuing at a butcher’s or baker’s counter, to hear the noise of an insect meeting its doom on an ultra-violet light trap. It makes you feel safe in the knowledge that a fly isn’t going to land on the food you are about to buy.

Would you feel the same way if you knew that the zapping noise you hear is accompanied by a cloud of microparticles from the recently deceased insect raining down on the surfaces beneath the trap and bits of the insect shattering and flying off in all directions? Approximately two in every hundred house flies electrocuted on high voltage traps scatters over a metre from where it was killed. Research has suggested that fly traps should be positioned at least 2m (horizontally) to ensure a scatter-free zone around the trap (Pickens, 1989). Read More »

National Windmills Weekend

Pests in the WindmillOn Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 May it’s National Windmills Weekend. Dozens of Flour Mills, Paper Mills, Woollen Mills and Silk Mills across the UK will open their doors to visitors.  You can see many of them working, enabling you to get a real sense of what it was like to work in a mill.

In 1820 there were 5,000 to 10,000 windmills in the UK. These creaking, rotating, food processing towers dotted the landscape in every county across the UK. Today only a handful have survived. Some still work and produce flour, and where’s there’s flour and grain you can rest assured the pests will be lurking close-by if not in the stored foodRead More »