What to do when rodents are inside your building

Taslim

This year we had the worst rodent issue ever. They were everywhere. Initially complained came from drive up units and now we are finding they got in to our inside units too. Our pest control has used every possible poison to keep them away. We spray bleach in front of the doors and have bait stations both outside and inside the hallways. We even placed some bait inside the units and found rodent's activity inside the locker. Is there a way to stop them from spreading further and hoping they don't reach the 2nd floor.

Orkocean

Have you found the source/cause of the issue? Typically someone is storing food in a unit which brought them to you in the first place. Something is causing them to come in, they're gonna go wherever they're smelling a food source at as long as they can. I've had customers complain about rodents and state they weren't storing food, examine the unit and see appliances such as blenders which had never been cleaned and still caked in food. You got to eliminate every source of food for them and you need to work with your customers.

When we took over a site that had let it go for 5 years of nothing being done it took about 6 months of solid effort to clean up. That meant every customer who came in we were walking out to chat with and peak at their unit for food, if found the food has to go or they can go all together.

Every customer we talked with we asked to put glue traps in their units and the ones who understood it was to better the property would come every couple of days to check and let us know if they had any that needed to be removed.

themage

Like @Orkocean said, chances are one or more of the tenants "invited" them in. If it's mice, they can get almost anywhere. If it's rats, someone may have brought them with their stuff, or you may have holes in the buildings.

We had to shut down an entire building and get every tenant to let us in, go through every single unit, block holes and clean until we found the tenant that brought them in. 65 units that time. Tenant had several cereal boxes stored and brought the rats in with their furniture.

The building had an opening along the top for ventilation that the rats could use to travel between units. We installed steel mesh to compartmentalize it.

CVSSSTORAGE

my very first week here I had a tenant come to me saying that mice destroyed all of his things and he was so mad. I asked him the normal questions any food or liquids in your unit? He replied no, I read the contract and I am not stupid. I went and looked at his unit and he had bags and bags of dried beans and lentils and sugar. Many things of shampoo and laundry soap. He also had ketchup and other sauces. I said Sir this is all food to which he replied it is not food. He said the beans and lentils could not be eaten unless it was cooked in water... and that the sugar and condiments were things that went into food. I explained to him that it was in fact food and mice don't care if it is cooked or not. I also explained that the poison we use causes the rodent to dry out so they become super thirsty and will look for any liquid including shampoo, cleaning supplies and laundry soap and that it was all covered in his lease. He said I was an idiot and trying to blame our infestation on him. He moved out the next day and we did not have any issues after that.

ESS

CVSSSTORAGE said:

my very first week here I had a tenant come to me saying that mice destroyed all of his things and he was so mad. I asked him the normal questions any food or liquids in your unit? He replied no, I read the contract and I am not stupid. I went and looked at his unit and he had bags and bags of dried beans and lentils and sugar. Many things of shampoo and laundry soap. He also had ketchup and other sauces. I said Sir this is all food to which he replied it is not food. He said the beans and lentils could not be eaten unless it was cooked in water... and that the sugar and condiments were things that went into food. I explained to him that it was in fact food and mice don't care if it is cooked or not. I also explained that the poison we use causes the rodent to dry out so they become super thirsty and will look for any liquid including shampoo, cleaning supplies and laundry soap and that it was all covered in his lease. He said I was an idiot and trying to blame our infestation on him. He moved out the next day and we did not have any issues after that.

Ignorance is suuuper bliss

teamcapitola

CVSSSTORAGE said:

my very first week here I had a tenant come to me saying that mice destroyed all of his things and he was so mad. I asked him the normal questions any food or liquids in your unit? He replied no, I read the contract and I am not stupid. I went and looked at his unit and he had bags and bags of dried beans and lentils and sugar. Many things of shampoo and laundry soap. He also had ketchup and other sauces. I said Sir this is all food to which he replied it is not food. He said the beans and lentils could not be eaten unless it was cooked in water... and that the sugar and condiments were things that went into food. I explained to him that it was in fact food and mice don't care if it is cooked or not. I also explained that the poison we use causes the rodent to dry out so they become super thirsty and will look for any liquid including shampoo, cleaning supplies and laundry soap and that it was all covered in his lease. He said I was an idiot and trying to blame our infestation on him. He moved out the next day and we did not have any issues after that.

WOW... just wow.  People can justify almost anything with "stupid logic"

I can't tell you how many arguments I've had with people over what's allowed to be stored (and what people actually do store!)