Cockroaches are Any Hotel's Least Welcome Guests
Ask any hotel owner and they’ve probably got stories of terrible guests from the past - likely, guests who have been overly needy, too loud, or who decide not to leave on time. But when it comes to who takes the title for worst hotel guests of all time, the winner may evoke a shudder from many hotel owners out there: cockroaches.
Reviled nearly worldwide as a harbinger of filth and disease, cockroaches tend to make themselves at home in a hotel and stick around well beyond their window of welcome. For building owners, this can be a nightmare rivaled only by pests like bed bugs - difficult to remove, and highly damaging to your reputation and ability to deliver a great guest experience.
Where You’ll Find Roaches, And What They Want
Found most often in bathrooms, the kitchen area, food storage, and the garbage area, cockroaches are pretty much constantly looking for two things: food and water. And it’s no wonder why cockroaches have been able to survive for nearly 280 million years - they’re excellent on subsisting on the bare minimum.
Most cockroaches seek out a steady diet of foods that are sweet, meaty, or starchy, but can survive on almost everything from hair to glue to old paper. And with access to even a small amount of water, cockroaches can survive and thrive for around a month without food.
Make sure these areas are left clean and food free as often as can be - constantly, if possible. It only takes a small amount of foodstuff to support even a few hundred cockroaches, and any amount left out and about looks like a healthy buffet to a cockroach on the hunt.
No Scheduled Check-Out In Sight
Cockroaches can stick around for a seriously long time if left untreated - especially if they’ve got plenty of food and water to keep going. Plus, they breed with gusto - while the average female American roach produces an average of 150 young in its 30-month lifetime, the German cockroach works even faster, with females laying up to seven egg capsules in a 20-week lifetime, each holding as many as 48 eggs.
Those numbers grow exponentially with each generation - and the larger the colony, the harder it can be to eliminate. That’s why hesitating to tackle a roach problem is likely a huge mistake - it may just make the problem much harder to solve in the long run.
Bringing A Hotel A Bad Name
Few pests can do more damage to a hotel’s long-term business quite like cockroaches. Ask anybody who’s ever walked into a hotel room and seen cockroaches scurry and they’ll probably use the phrase “Worst stay ever.” That’s because the sight of even a single roach will likely ruin not only a single stay for any guest, but their entire perception of the hotel itself. It only takes one bad review online for the ramifications of a cockroach infestation to haunt a hotel forever.
If you notice a cockroach problem has developed in your hotel, it’s imperative that you take care of it immediately - not only because it will be harder to deal with the worse it gets, but also because of the compounding effect that unhappy or disgusted guests can have on a hotel’s longevity. Luckily, an expert in pest removal may be just the solution needed.
Bringing In The Experts
While a cockroach infestation may feel very much like a death knell for a hotel, the fact is roaches can be fully controlled and eliminated with an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program like the ones offered by JP Pest Services.
A professional IPM program can help a hotel owner identify weak points in their defense against cockroaches, and can implement solutions like restricted access to food and water sources or tough sanitation and facility maintenance standards to prevent roaches from spreading and finding a comfortable home. Your pest control expert may also recommend further chemical or natural treatments as well, all with the goal of getting rid of roaches from your hotel and giving you peace of mind.
Whether you’re currently facing a cockroach problem or you’re simply trying to keep your hotel cockroach free for the future, JP Pest Services offers a full, comprehensive inspection to address any weak points in your pest solution. Get in contact and see just how much we can do to keep these unwelcome visitors far away from your business.
