4 Steps To Protect Your Business From Shutting Down Due To Rats

Rats Nightmare

The recent revelations on rats found in convenience stores, well-known food stalls, and even upmarket bakeries have once again put rodents in the limelight and caused distress among Malaysians. Viral posts showing rodents, dead and alive at the aforementioned places highlight the enormity of rat infestation and poor hygiene level among the food providers here in Malaysia. 

The most recent and widely shared post was a video of an atrocious rat nestled among grocery items at an established supermarket in Kuala Lumpur. Furious netizens expressed their disappointment and some even called a ban over the unhygienic premises. Thankfully, the property was ordered to shut down and can only be reopened after it passes the Health Ministry’s inspection.

How Rats May Threaten Your Business:

• The sight of rats gives the impression that a place is filthy, scaring customers away. 
• Immediately tarnish a business reputation, resulting in financial losses and loss of trust from customers. Food-focused businesses lost an average of 8 working days due to rat infestations. 
• Contaminate food and spread dreaded diseases like Leptospirosis, posing great health and safety risks. In 2016, about 27% of Malaysians were infected by this deadly disease. 
• Can cause serious fire hazards when rats gnaw on electrical cables. Based on a survey commissioned by Rentokil, 49% of businesses suffered electrical damages caused by rats. 
• Failure to comply with hygiene requirements by local authority could lead to business closure or fines.

Managing Rat Infestation Effectively With Integrated Rodent Management 

It is tremendously challenging to deal with rodents due to their abilities by nature. Firstly, they are agile runners and can squeeze through holes as small as a 20 cents coin (0.96 inches). This enables them to infiltrate almost every area of your premises. Besides that, rats are also known to be neophobic. This makes them wary and afraid of new things, hence, application of DIY baiting may not be effective. Even worse, they can produce 4-16 pups at once! Given all these challenges, DIY rat control approaches would not be able to do the job effectively.

Our Integrated Rodent Management is a holistic programme, proven to effectively control rats in the long run. This approach combines the application of the four (4) key principles.

• Exclusion: Eliminate potential rat entry points in your property 
• Restriction: Actions needed to restrict the spreading of rats infestation 
• Destruction: Wide range of toxic and non-toxic treatment methods that are tailored specifically to your business needs 
• Monitoring: Continuous monitoring to ensure the infestation doesn’t reoccur 

Found signs of rat infestation in your premises? Call us today at 1300 882 911 to find out more about Rentokil Integrated Rodent Management.