5 Ways to Keep Your Office Clean & Pest-free

Some of the common office complaints are typically around smelly washrooms, dusty environment or dirty facility and poor facility maintenance. However, the nerve-wrecking and worry-some complaint is usually about pests bugging employees at work.

Spending at least 8 hours at work, some of our actions and activities could potentially place us at risk of a pest infestation! Here are the 5 common mistakes that we usually make at work in the office:

#1: We tend to eat at our desk for lunch while working, or snacks every now and then for a break. While it is not healthy to eat during work activities, these munching activities could mean spilling food crumbs or bits around the desk, chair and floor, and attracting cockroaches and ants to your workstation.

#2: Leaving unsealed drinks unattended on desk is a common habit among employees, in some instances; the drinks are not cleared and disposed after working hours. Moist is a common pest attractant, however, sweet flavored drinks with sugary or honey element would attract Sugar Ants.

#3: Improper waste management is a common pest culprit. For example, disposing half eaten food meals or unfinished drinks into the waste bin located at your desk or not emptying waste bins regularly and diligently would attract pests who source for such food for survival. Always remember to dispose them in the appropriate area, such as pantry or designated disposal location.

#4: Irregular facility maintenance check could bring some risk factors, especially for buildings that are older or with weaken and damaged structures, resulting in gaps, crevices, holes and pipe leaks. These multiple proofs of entries give numerous accesses for pests such as ants, cockroaches and rodents’ access to your office area. Rodents in particular, tend to gnaw on wirings found in IT server room (as their teeth never stop growing) to trim their teeth, and in many health and safety cases, these gnawing causes short circuit risks or even worse cases such as fire.

#5: Pantry is a popular gathering space for resting and carrying out food preparation and consumption activities. It is also a common space for food disposal, wastage and water usage. This also means high risk of attracting pests who requires food source, garbage and moist to feed on. Without diligent housekeeping and maintenance, over time, it will turn into high risk hot spot for these common office pests.

On and off, every office would at least engage in some quick solution and DIY methods, but typically, these solutions somehow do not work and employees tend to experience recurring pests and in some cases, the recurrence will deteriorate further. Proper site inspection is critical to identify root source of the problem, especially at blind spots and difficult to access spaces and areas for obvious signs.

Let our team of specialists take care of your office pest worries with affordable and integrated pest management solutions. Help is just a call away at 0 8001 333 777 or drop your online enquiry.

Stagnant water has arguably become the breeding ground for a mosquito to complete their life cycle. Most of the types of mosquitoes will lay and hatch their eggs directly into the stagnant fresh water that can be found around the property.

Adult female mosquitoes breed in large numbers (approximately 100-400 eggs), and it hatches within 48 hours to begin larvae stages depending on water temperature.

Look around at your property, and try to eliminate any items that could be the sources of stagnant water:

• Buckets
• Tin cans
• Used or discarded tires
• Plate flower vase
• Kiddie pools
• Pet water dishes

2. Keep the water moving

Mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant water, so if you have a pond at home you have to ensure that to keep the water moving.

Installation for water features, such as a water fountain or a water agitator will help you to limit the opportunity for mosquitoes to lay their eggs - due to the fact that larvae can only survive in stagnant water and not on the moving water.

Also, don’t forget to keep your ponds tidy with regular cut off to any vegetation that may grow around the pond edges.

3. Install insect screens to windows and doors

While it's almost impossible to protect your yard and home completely from mosquito problems, it's important to ensure that you keep them outside all the time.

Installing insect screens to your windows and doors, not only will block mosquitoes and other small pesky insects from coming indoors but also an ideal way to let you keep that cool breezy run through your home.

4. Grow some mosquito-repelling plants in your garden

Besides adding beauty to your garden, growing some of the mosquito-repelling plants is the easiest and cheapest way to reduce the number of mosquitos in your property naturally.

Many plants emit strong scents and very repulsively for many insects that can be used to deter mosquitoes too. There are at least 8 plants that repel mosquitoes naturally you can grow at the garden:

• Lemongrass
• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Catnip
• Lemon balm
• Geraniums
• Basil
• Mint

5. Remove mosquito resting areas

The most common mosquito species most active at night - during the dawn and evening hours. While during the daytime, they prefer to harbour in a dark, sheltered and undisturbed place. To reduce the likelihood of mosquitoes flying around your home is by removing any areas that potentially could be promoting mosquito harborage both inside and outside your house.

Although mosquito resting places may vary between species, yet there are some generalities about mosquito resting behaviour.

• Outside your house – mosquitoes like to rest on tall grass and shrubs. Trim your lawn regularly and keep the shrubs away from the foundation of your house to make your yard less attractive to become mosquitoes' resting area.
• Inside your house – Aedes Aegypti is one of the mosquito species that are commonly known for their indoor resting preferences. There are a couple of places that become Aedes mosquito resting sites inside your house, including under the furniture, hanging utensils in the kitchen and hanging used clothes in the bathroom.

Did you know? Aedes mosquito likes to rest on the hanging used clothes because it consists of some substances that can attract them to come, these include humans amino acids, body heat, odour and sweat.

6. Keep your gutter clean and free from debris

It is important to always keep your gutters clean from debris all the time. Not just important as a part of home maintenance, but when leaves and other debris could clog up the waterways it will become a perfect place for mosquito breeding grounds.

7. Keep the cool temperature inside the house

Mosquitoes are weak fliers, so by placing an air fan on the house patio and/or turning on the air conditioner throughout the night while you’re sleeping might become the best mosquito deterrent inside the house.

The temperature always goes side-by-side with mosquito feeding habits. That is why the idea to keep the cool temperature inside the house is a simple trick to make mosquito go away, because:

• Mosquitoes are a cold-blooded insect, meaning they will be more active in warm temperatures instead of cold or cool temperatures.
• The wind released by the fan or air conditioner will make it difficult for mosquitoes to fly near you. As a comparison with other flying pests, Aedes mosquito flies 6 times slower than a housefly, and even 30 times slower than horse fly.
• Although they will not go away, many mosquito species will be gone and hide to look for warmth spots when the temperature turns cooler.

Professional mosquito control

The best way to control mosquitoes around your home is to prevent or minimize mosquito breeding sites around the property. The abovementioned prevention tips are definitely complimentary things you can do around your home to help get rid of mosquitoes, but professional mosquito control always becomes your best bet!

The expert in Rentokil offers you the latest methods to find where mosquitoes like to rest and treat those areas, as well as to kill off all the stages of the mosquitoes life cycle from around your home.

If you are looking for help controlling mosquitoes in your home, get in contact with the experts at Rentokil today.