Pest Control For Commercial Office Buildings

Pest Control For Commercial Office Buildings

Office buildings can be especially vulnerable to pests. From single unit offices to commercial high-rises with multiple commercial offices, no space is immune to pests. Between visitors regularly coming in and out, leaving entryways open, to staff unknowingly bringing in pests through their personal belongings, pests can get into your office building without you even noticing.

Once pests get into your office, they may multiply, creating a nuisance for both employees and property managers. Depending on the severity of the infestation, pests can also play a role in both disrupting operations and causing significant maintenance and sanitation issues.

Using over 71 years of industry leading expertise and knowledge in pest management, we have put together a list of the most common pests you need to watch for in your commercial office building.

Common Pests To Watch Out For In Your Office Building

Bed bugs

Bed bugs are notorious hitchhikers and can hide in the belongings of employees and visitors. From briefcases and purses to laptops and laptop bags, bed bugs can get into your office building without raising the alarm. From there, these pesky pests can multiply and spread rapidly throughout the office units within your building.

No office is immune, as sanitation does not play a factor in whether or not you get bed bugs. Recognizing the signs of bed bugs early on, monitoring and periodic inspections can be critical in stopping a large-scale bed bug takeover of your office. In order to keep your office protected against bed bugs, it is important to have a professional bed bug removal specialist to manage your issue.

Cockroaches

Cockroaches (mainly the German cockroach and American cockroach) are a common pest for any office building. As organic waste in lunchrooms, kitchens or kitchenettes provide ideal conditions for cockroaches to thrive. These pests are also nocturnal, making it harder for you to recognize a possible infestation growing in your office building.

In office buildings with atriums or solariums with tropical plants, certain species of cockroaches such as Australian and Surinam cockroaches can burrow in the potting or planting soils without alerting any operational staff. These cockroaches also feed on the roots of the plants, creating a maintenance issue for your plants in the process.

Ants

As visitors and employees come in and out of the office building, this leaves an opening for ants (mainly Pavement ants and Pharaoh ants) to enter. As ants look for warm indoor spaces in order to nest, making large office buildings or commercial high-rise properties a perfect option. As many species of ants usually establish colonies indoors within voids in office walls, in building foundations, behind baseboards and refrigerators.

Birds

Pest birds such as pigeons, starlings, sparrows and Canadian geese can be a huge nuisance to any office building, as these pests present a number of different issues for any building operator. As pests, birds can transmit a number of different diseases through their droppings, which are especially dangerous to people with compromised immune systems. Pest birds may also carry a number of different ectoparasites like fleas, mites, and ticks. All of these ectoparasites have the ability to transmit diseases to clients, employees, and visitors.

Pest birds can also damage buildings by nesting in small crevices, drains, and gutters.  creating drainage issues and fire hazards in the process. Pest bird droppings can also stick to buildings, potentially eroding and potentially compromising the structure.

Small Flies

Fruit flies

Fruit flies can be a nuisance for any office space. Fruit flies can either found their way inside your office building by following the odours of ripe fruit or breed inside the office if there is potential breeding source such as over stayed, stale recycling beverage cans and bottles, poorly maintained garbage receptacles in lunchrooms.

Once they are in your office building, one fruit can multiply rapidly into hundreds in only a few days, when ideal conditions are present.

Fungus gnat

Fungus gnats are known to be pests of greenhouses and nurseries, but they can also infest office buildings with interior potted plants and rooftop gardens. Frequently, they use office ventilation system to enter indoors. Although they do not bite or transmit disease-causing organisms, their presence can be a nuisance not only for staff, but also for those responsible for the maintenance of the interior and exterior plants.

These pests feed on plant roots during the larval stage of their life cycle; in doing so, they damage the roots and stunt the growth of the plants. Adults and larvae may also spread plant pathogens that can cause collar rot, root rot, damping off, and wire stem diseases.

Phorid flies & Drain flies

Phorid flies and drain flies might be one of the more common pest flies in office buildings. Unlike the common fruit fly, phorid flies can be more apt to roam and invade the entire office building rather than staying near their food source. Phorid flies feed on and breed in moist decaying organic matter, so they also spread bacteria and disease.

Office buildings with poor maintenance, leaky pipes and sanitary practices are more prone to drain flies. As these pests feed on decomposing organic matter and sewage, commonly found in lunchrooms and washroom facilities. Though drain flies are not known to bite or transmit any diseases to humans, the dense fuzzy hairs on the body can trigger bronchial asthma in susceptible individuals. Female drain flies can also deposit anywhere from 30 to 100 eggs, so an untreated fly issue may eventually lead to hundreds of flies infesting your office space, creating a disruption to operations for all office employees.

Spiders

As spiders prefer dark environments, office buildings and high-rise commercial spaces offer ideal conditions for them to thrive. As dark spaces like maintenance supply rooms, basements, parking garages, storage rooms and corners of rooms provide common harbourage areas within office buildings. This is because these areas are usually quiet, undisturbed and allow spiders to become established within the space.

Though they may seem scary, spiders actually try to avoid contact with humans. And while there are a few types of spider bites that can be dangerous to humans, such as the brown recluse, spider bites are uncommon and rarely fatal. 

Office buildings should be spaces for employees not pests. If you want to ensure your office building is professionally protected, contact us today!

Resources

• How To Keep Your Commercial Building Pest Free