How to Manage Hotel Room Pest Control

There are few things worse for a hotel’s reputation than a pest infestation. Horror stories of bed bugs, cockroaches or mice will inflame the Yelp army. We want to help you avoid this unpleasant scenario with tips and protocols for hotel room pest control in your establishment.

Hotels are a particularly difficult business to keep pests out. Nuisances like roaches, bed bugs and fleas all love hitching rides on unwitting travelers. Your hotel is, unfortunately, a hub for this activity. You work hard to keep your guests comfortable. We’ll work hard to help you identify what bugs live in hotels and how to keep them out. Of course, when you need extra help, Assured Environments is your go to expert in commercial pest control for hotels.

Keeping Pests Out of Your Hotel: The Big Secret

There are three reasons pests check into your hotel: food, water and shelter. The secret to denying them these basic needs is cleanliness. When you keep a tidy, well-maintained establishment, pests find it difficult to establish a foothold.

Food control is one of the biggest obstacles. Dirty dishes, room service trays, food wrappers, crumbs and even sugary beverages all attract unwanted attention. In your kitchen:

• Keep a clean workspace.
• Stock fresh ingredients and rotate frequently.
• Store food in sealed pest-proof containers.
• Clean out items that have sat for more than a month.
• Wash all used pots, pans and dishes daily.

Laundry Rooms are often overlooked and ironically can be one of the dirtiest locations in a hotel. Rodents love lint for nesting material and insects like carpet beetles feast on fabrics and textiles.

• Establish a protocol for keeping your laundry room clean.
• Check and repair faucets and laundry hoses for leaks.
• Consider steam cleaning to remove insects.
• Seal cracks and holes in walls.

Outer perimeters should receive regular maintenance. Keeping pests out starts at the exterior.

• Repair cracks and gaps where pests can enter.
• Replace broken screens and windows. Make sure they’re weather-stripped.
• Seal gaps where plumbing and electrical enter the building.
• Landscape towards dry open areas.
• Sweep and keep debris away.
• Locate dumpsters away from your building and clean them regularly.

It may seem tedious or even silly to follow some of these guidelines, but pests are tenacious. If you can prevent pest infestation of an outdoor dumpster, you reduce the likelihood of pests coming inside. If you do preemptive cleaning and notice small bugs in your laundry room right away, you are ahead of the pest control curve. Even sweeping away debris reduces the areas where pests can establish a place to live near your building.

Train Your Staff How to Identify Hotel Pests

Everyone who works in your hotel is a point of contact for pest control. If your staff knows how to check for bed bugs in a hotel room or can identify fleas in a hotel room, you stand a much better chance of remediating the problem quickly. Make sure everyone is aware of the signs to look for and protocols to follow.

How to Avoid Bed Bugs in Hotel Rooms:

Bed bugs are one of the biggest concerns guests have. Train your housekeeping staff to look for these signs of potential infestation:

• Brownish- or rust-colored stains on sheets  
• Small tears or holes in bedding
• Skin sheds
• Tiny coffee ground size feces
• Musty odor
• Tiny bugs under mattresses or on furniture

If You Find a Cockroach in Your Hotel: What to Do

Roaches are easily identifiable by their oval bodies, long antennae, scuttling legs and the sharp chill they send up your spine. If you or a staff member see a roach, it’s important to act fast. It’s critical to identify where it got in and if there are more.

Commercial traps and baits work but you will want to be sure the problem is completely addressed from all angles. A pest control expert can eliminate existing roaches and identify prevention methods against future invaders. The last thing you want is your hotel infested with roaches and a guest who wakes up with a cockroach in their bed.

Common Pests Found in Hotels

As you work with your staff to reduce your risk of pest infestation, it’s good to know what pests you’re rallying against. Here are the unwanted guests we most frequently see and also flagged by lodging magazine:

• Bed bugs
• Cockroaches
• Fleas
• Flies
• Mice
• Rats

Having a united effort against any and all these invaders will significantly reduce your chance of hotel pest infestation. Create a hotel pest control check list and make sure channels of communication are always open so that protocols can be followed right away. All of these pests are capable of multiplying quickly if left unchecked.

Your Secret Weapon for Pest Control in New York Hotels

Assured Environments offers pest control solutions catered specifically to the hospitality industry including:

• Trash chute cleaning
• Roach removal and prevention
• Rodent control
• Fly management and drain cleaning

Don’t take chances. If a guest comes up to the front desk and says, “I found a roach in my hotel room,” you need to act fast. Assured Environments has been eliminating hotel pests in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut since 1934. Call or contact us today for swift action when your honeymoon suite goes sour with pests.