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Ant control
Ants in a Food Business
For a food business a trail across a preparation surface is a finding, and the clock is different.
What causes trouble at an inspection
Not whether you have ever had ants — a town-centre kitchen with a yard and a bin store will — but whether you knew, what you did about it, and whether you can show it.
The findings that cause problems are a live trail in a preparation or storage area with no corresponding record of action, and stock stacked hard against walls so nothing can be inspected behind it. Evidence of an ongoing problem with nothing being done is the serious one.
A business that can produce a survey, a record of what was found and treated, and a note of what proofing is outstanding is in a completely different conversation from one that cannot.
Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.
Where they come in
In a commercial kitchen the colony is outside and the route is structural.
- The gap under a delivery or fire door, and the door propped open during service.
- The junction where the building meets the yard: the slab edge, the step, the threshold.
- Service ducts and pipe penetrations through an external wall.
- The bin store. Usually the actual reason and not the route: a permanent, reliable sugar supply a few metres from the building, often with a nest directly underneath the hard standing it sits on.
That last one is worth acting on regardless. Sealed bins, the area washed down, and the hard standing under and around it checked for excavated soil.
Species first, in this setting more than any other
In a continuously warm building, establishing what you have got is not an academic exercise.
Garden ants come in from outside and go home, and the job is to treat the colony out there. Pharaoh ants nest inside the fabric of the building, have multiple queens, and spread through the structure when they meet a repellent product, so a well-meant spray in a commercial kitchen can turn one problem into several in places nobody can reach.
Small, pale, and present in winter points at the second. If there is any doubt we establish it before anything is applied.
How the visit is run
We work around trading hours, including late evenings and weekends, because taking a kitchen out of service is the real cost.
If you need a record for your due-diligence file, say so when you book and we will set out what was found, where the nest is, what was done and what is outstanding.
Where the finding is structural (a door, a duct, a yard junction) we will say so, including when the fix belongs to your landlord. That is usually what gets it dealt with.
Before you book
Ant Questions, Briefly
We have an inspection this week. What can you do?
Attend quickly, establish the species, find the nest, treat it and proof what can be proofed on the day. Ask for it in writing and we will set out what was found, what was done and what is outstanding.
The bin store is shared with the units next door. Does that matter?
Often it is the whole problem. A shared bin store is a permanent food source with hard standing under it, and there is frequently a colony directly beneath. We put that in writing, because it is usually the landlord or the managing agent who can act on it.
Tell Us Where the Trail Goes
Which room the trail is in, where it goes when it leaves the building, and whether soil is coming up between paving outside.
Get in touch
Book an Ant Treatment
Tell us which room the trail is in, where it goes when it leaves the building, and whether you have found excavated soil outside. A photograph of the trail is worth more than any description.
- Phone
- 01908 465226
- Message us on WhatsApp
- sales@miltonkeynespestcontroller.co.uk
- Milton Keynes Pest Controller Service
- Address
- South Row
Milton Keynes
MK9 3DQ - Covering
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire