Author: Kurt Treftz, Cascade Pest Control
How to Prevent Rodents from Chewing Wires & Cables
When rodents, such as rats or mice, find their way into a building structure, they have access to voids between walls and floors, as well as in drop ceilings. This structure is most common in office spaces, as it allows any wiring, piping, or insulation to be easily accessible for maintenance, but not obtrusive and publicly visible.
While drop ceilings make commercial wiring more efficient, they unfortunately also force the necessity of rodent prevention. The cavities created are safe havens for mice and rats, and they give rodents free range of the entire business floor, allowing them easy access to a multitude of nesting spots and food sources. Understanding what unintentional rodent lures exist in your business setting and how best to abate them is key to maintaining a safe workplace.
Workplace Rodent Control—Infestation Hazards at the Office
Between these cables and the other materials present in drop ceiling spaces, rodents feel quite at home at the office. They are adept at making homes for themselves and burrowing to create the space they need. The easily movable tiles of typical drop ceilings also allow rodents to slip through to kitchen and trash facilities, making commercial spaces even more sustainable.
One of the most common targets of rodent damage in office settings is internet cables and electrical wiring. This is due to its placement usually within wall or ceiling cavities. Rodents tend to nest in these locations due to the abundance of insulation and wood materials they can shred to create nests. The dark, dry enclosure also makes them feel safe.
A pesky skill rodents have is the ability to chew their way through most common building materials. Rodent teeth are much like human fingernails in that they grow perpetually unless curtailed. This is what experts have concluded especially draws rats and mice to cabling or wires: the semi-durable coating and toughness of the metal strands within provide viable contenders for tooth files.
Rodent Prevention—Best Practices for Commercial Spaces
Unfortunately, rodent damage to any electrical system can be intensely dangerous and inconvenient in a professional setting. Between potential electrical fires and outages to lack of connectivity and internet, rats and mice can inflict a costly amount of damage.
The best rodent control technique in these spaces is regular maintenance. A bright side is that office and commercial spaces usually have regular updates to internet / security systems that can involve opening up the spaces in which that equipment is kept. These technicians are the first line of defense sometimes in detecting and seeing evidence of rodent presence, damage, or filth.
While regularly scheduled inspections through a rodent control service are ideal and the best way to keep your space clean and safe, depending on the size of your property you can self-patrol and monitor problem areas as well. As long as those concealed spots where materials exist that rodents could gain access to outdoors or other nesting materials are being regularly disturbed, the chances of permanent and growing rodent populations should decrease.
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