Home Guest Columns Give Pests the Green Treatment

Give Pests the Green Treatment

1530
0
SHARE

As the lodging industry continues to lose sleep over the bed bug epidemic, it’s more important than ever to maintain effective, proactive pest management practices at your hotel. Unfortunately, many facilities have turned to improper techniques in their efforts to fight bed bugs—with serious consequences for their guests and the environment.

In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) issued a health advisory to alert the public to the dangers of improperly applying pesticides for bed bug control.

According to the advisory, over the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of incidents reported of people misusing pesticides to treat bed bug infestations. Several facilities have illegally sprayed outdoor pesticides indoors, or sprayed pesticides at levels that can impact people’s health. In one case, a pest problem was misattributed to bed bugs and lead to unnecessary pesticide use by the hotel staff.

The advisory states that it is extremely easy to misapply chemicals when attempting to prevent or treat infestations of bed bugs and other insects. Furthermore, misapplication can lead to costly fixes including structural repairs, furniture replacement, expensive cleaning services and—most importantly—poor reviews from guests.

Hire a Licensed, Experienced Professional

The CDC recommends hiring a licensed and experienced pest management professional as the best way to help control bed bugs. A pest management professional who is highly trained and educated about bed bugs can inspect your property, identify an infestation and help to appropriately treat the area.

Because bed bugs can “hitchhike” inside guests’ luggage at any time, it is impossible to completely prevent bed bugs; however, your pest management professional can train your staff to identify signs of bed bugs so you can respond quickly to an infestation. These signs include: live bed bugs; cast skins; small, rust-colored spots on bedding, mattress or box springs; and cream-colored eggs approximately 1/32” to 1/8” in size.

In the event of an infestation, work with your pest management professional to appropriately treat the area. Here are a few tactics that your pest management professional should suggest for bed bug management: visual inspection, inspection with DNA testing, canine inspection, heat treatments, encasements for beds and furniture, and if necessary, residual treatments including chemicals or fumigation.

An infestation of bed bugs or other pests can be detrimental to your hotel’s brand and bottom line—especially in today’s climate of outspoken customer feedback in which word travels extraordinarily fast. One bad tweet, Facebook post or online review can travel like wildfire, disrupting the reputation that you and your staff strenuously work to create and maintain. In fact, a recent study by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration found that online reviews can swing room rates by more than 10 percent. This is why your property’s approach to effective pest management is more important than ever to protecting your business.

Employ IPM Practices

While bed bug infestations require a very specific type of treatment, when addressing pests in general, hotels can now implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs. An IPM program discourages pests from infesting your property by limiting access to their basic necessities—food, water and shelter—through improved sanitation practices and facility maintenance. In addition, new pest management technologies and treatments may be less intrusive and more environmentally responsible than the procedures of the past. The IPM approach is proactive and holistic, employing low-impact chemical treatments only as a last resort.

Your pest management professional should be able to provide you with a variety of low-impact and environmentally responsible solutions as part of your IPM plan, including: fly lights, caulking and sealing, sticky monitor boards, repellants and desiccants, non-volatile baits and organic cleaners. Low-impact options are especially important as hotel guests have become more sensitive to and observant of the places they’re staying. An IPM program can help keep pests out of your guestrooms, public areas and dining spaces without leaving any visual clues or smelly residue from treatments.

Since IPM requires more complex knowledge than basic pest management, it’s important to find a credible, trustworthy and knowledgeable provider who stays up-to-date on pest biology and behavior and the latest best practices and technologies. Ideally, your relationship should develop into a partnership in which both parties are privy to the property and its unique intricacies, and work together to identify and implement the practices that will most effectively help protect your hotel from pests and the unwanted reviews they provoke. When evaluating your choices of pest management professionals, you should focus on the following key areas:

•    Partnership—An approach to pest management that involves your entire staff.
•    Knowledge—High level of training for all technicians.
•    Experience—Deep, practical knowledge of the lodging industry.
•    Reputation—Positive and documented reputation within the industry.
•    Commitment—Dedication to your hotel’s brand as much as to their own.

Maintaining effective and proactive pest management practices is vitally important to your hotel’s operations. Keep guests happy by working with a pest management professional to implement an IPM program that will help prevent unwanted guests and let you rest easy.

Ron Harrison, Entomologist, Ph.D., is Director of Technical Services for Orkin and an acknowledged leader in the field of pest management. Contact Dr. Harrison at rharrison@orkin.com or visit www.orkincommercial.com for more information.

LEAVE A REPLY