What are some effective workplace pest control tips during COVID-19?
- Clean work desk after eating
- Wash dishes in the pantry
- Set a rat trap
- Disinfect office space
- Store food properly
The media has been reminding the public to practice proper hygiene and sanitation tips to protect themselves against the virus. Especially now that some restrictions have been lifted in some parts of the country, people are going back to work. They’ve been taking stricter precautions when it comes to keeping themselves safe. After all, they’ll be spending more interaction with their coworkers who are no doubt doing the same. Keeping this in mind, practicing effective workplace pest control tips has never been more important. Coupled with social distancing and equipping oneself with personal protective equipment, office pest control can keep a workplace clean and safe for everyone.
You’re not the only one making use of the many areas of your workplace. In much the same way, you simply cannot leave the responsibility of keeping it clean solely to the maintenance crew of your building floor. Continue reading to learn more about how you can do your part.
Clean work desk after eating
Due to busy work schedules, some people don’t have time to leave their desks and go outside of the office building for a quick lunch. You’ve probably been guilty of eating at your workspace. While there’s nothing problematic about this practice, you’re also transforming your space into a potential breeding ground for pests such as ants, or vermin.
After eating your lunch, make sure that you’re wiping your work desk clean. Make sure that no crumbs or any other kind of food residue have been left on your table. Throw out any food wrappers which may attract any ants to your desk. On greasy surfaces, use a cloth or tissue which has been lightly damped with soap and water. You may also make use of ethyl alcohol to wipe your table spotless.
Wash dishes in the pantry
There are many common areas in office space. This may either be the lounge or, most commonly, the pantry. There may be a tendency for some of your coworkers to just simply leave out any dishes or utensils in the pantry’s sink. Once again, this may attract pests such as cockroaches, ants, and rodents.
To avoid situations from taking place, you should wash all the dishes after every use. When you’re leaving out some of these items in the pantry, the worst thing you can do is to leave them lying in the sink – the food scraps are not only unsightly, but they can contaminate the entire pantry due to the foul odor they may produce.
Washing dishes takes only a few minutes of your time and this is a great way of keeping the area spic and span and free from pests.
Set a rat trap
Sometimes, you simply cannot rely on your management to do the job when it comes to maintaining workplaces hygienic for everyone. Knowing this, all individual efforts to keep your workplace clean are welcome – particularly when it comes to rodent infestation.
As such, another pest control tip you should practice is to set up a rat trap around the areas of your office. Adhesive rat traps are the best option because you wouldn’t have to make use of traditional cheese traps which may attract other bugs and insects. Furthermore, these traps can also prevent other pests like lizards and cockroaches from invading space.
Disinfect office space
This task is something that you may suggest to your office management. In disinfecting your area, you need to consider that the fumes from any fumigation products you may use may enter your other coworkers’ respiratory systems. In this time of a pandemic, this situation simply cannot take place – you wouldn’t want to be responsible for further endangering the health of your coworkers.
Make sure fumigation is done at a time when no one is present in the office – preferably on a weekend. Products you may want to use include pesticides or insecticides so that you’ll really be able to target the most common workplace pests.
Store food properly
If you are leaving food in your office pantry’s refrigerator, ensure that it has been stored and stacked properly. Use airtight containers to prevent instances of your food from spilling, or letting out a foul odor while inside the fridge.
When you’re properly storing food, you’re preventing flies from contaminating the pantry. Apart from this, ants also wouldn’t be able to get attracted to the smell of food products like red meat, poultry, rice, or other sugar-laden snacks.
Key Takeaway
If you can’t keep your entire office space clean on your own, you may resort to doing individual acts of maintaining hygiene and sanitation. While operations have resumed, the pandemic isn’t over yet and people need to keep a close eye on keeping themselves and their peers healthy.
Some of the workplace pest control tips you can follow include proper storage of food, keeping your desks clean, and washing dishes after every use in the kitchen. In this way, you’re making the office environment a much safer place for everyone else, granted they also do their part.