[Cockroach Control Issue] Soup's On!

Restaurants can represent one of the most difficult commercial accounts for a pest control operator, but one of the best for the pests that harbor there. Restaurants — specifically their kitchens — are an oasis for roaches and other pests: an abundance of food, water and sometimes thousands of harborages, combined with a proprietor who is more concerned with investing in new booths, than with repairing rotted walls behind the dishwasher.

“One of the big problems in all restaurants is sanitation. They have miles and miles of cracks and crevices, and you can’t possibly inspect or treat them all,” said Jeff Tucker, an independent consulting urban entomologist since 1981, president of Houston-based Entomology Associates and principal author of Whitmire Micro-Gen’s Prescription Treatment University.

A FLY IN YOUR SOUP. Tucker said PCOs need to rethink the way they traditionally treat commercial accounts when it comes to restaurants and kitchens, because they offer so many different challenges to successful control of so many types of pests. Complicating matters are that the pests — especially German cockroaches — are becoming averse or even resistant to certain baits.

And a PCO also is often limited by the timeframe of treatment for a restaurant. Many eateries serve customers during daytime hours, and don’t want a technician spraying in sight of customers. Nearly all, Tucker said, concentrate more on keeping the tables looking good than keeping the building in good shape.

PLAN OF ATTACK. Tucker said PCOs have to formulate a specific plan of attack unique to restaurants. He breaks down the typical eatery into three areas or macro-habitats for pests: the exterior, which includes the roof, foundation and landscaping; the dining area, which includes anywhere customers are likely to be found; and the back of the house, which comprises the kitchen, offices and food storage areas.

• Exterior: especially garbage cans, Dumpsters, loading docks and patios
• Front of the house: areas around the bar, restrooms, under booths, tables and chairs, and inside trash cans, cabinets and side stations
• Back of the house: food prep tables, especially under flashings and inside hollow legs, food products on shelves, underneath grills and fryers and floor drains

RESTAURANT ROACH REMOVAL. But in treating each macro-habitat, Tucker said, PCOs must focus on the thousands of microhabitats that exist all over a restaurant and kitchen for roaches, the No. 1 pest plaguing eateries.

“The job of a pest management professional with regard to restaurants is to seek the microhabitats and if necessary, treat them or eliminate them,” Tucker said. “Just about anywhere in a restaurant is a habitat for German cockroaches.”

Tucker said cockroaches spend most of their time in one, unique harborage, leaving only at night to forage for food and water. Those harborages are legion in a kitchen — even a clean one: under cardboard, behind cabinets, inside hollow legs of tables.

“It’s important to know German cockroaches have a great deal of fidelity to their primary harborages,” he said. “German roaches don’t move from one harborage to another on a daily basis.  However, as the population in the harborage increases from reproduction, some of the cockroaches will seek new harborage.”

But that doesn’t mean they don’t cross paths with one another. It helps to think of a kitchen as a cockroach city. Imagine 20 roaches live in a floor drain. That’s one neighborhood. And 20 more live in a table  nearby. That’s another neighborhood.

So, a PCO treats the floor drain, the restaurateur doesn’t see any roaches coming out of the drain anymore and he’s happy. But the PCO doesn’t know about the table leg, and in a few weeks or months, roaches from the table leg have spread from their neighborhood and into the floor drain.

“Over time, the roaches that were in the undiscovered population will refill those vacated harborage areas,” Tucker said. “They move into the old neighborhood. They are not static. This aids in explaining why cockroach control sometimes fails to deliver the results necessary.”

This cycle, which Tucker calls the “hills and valleys of German roach control, can be avoided if a PCO takes the time to thoroughly inspect all the potential harborage areas. Otherwise, he said, “you’ll be fighting them forever and your customer will be complaining.”

WHAT IT ALL MEANS. In order to treat a commercial kitchen or restaurant effectively, Tucker said, PCOs must use products with long residual effects, and know how to properly use those products. With a resurgence of roaches — especially ones that are resistant to some baits — technique is tantamount to control.

“There’s a whole generation of PMPs who don’t know how to effectively treat an entire building,” he said. “They just know you take this gun and apply this sticky stuff and all the roaches die. They found a hot item and rode it to death. The use of multiple formulations and treatment techniques is a much more sustainable and effective approach.”

Simply thinking about a plan of attack before treating, he said, will lead to better results and more effective control.

“It’s not rocket science,” he said. 

The author is assistant editor of PCT magazine. He can be reached at cbowen@giemedia.com.

Want to Know More?

Whitmire Micro-Gen’s Restaurants & Commercial Kitchens brochure, a valuable training tool with information about inspections and treatments, is available online at www.wmmg.com/training/literature.asp or by calling the company’s customer service department at 800/777-8570.