They’re noisy, hungry and unhygienic, and leave a huge mess behind.

Rats and mice are a feared pest in homes and hospitality venues alike. With their ever-growing teeth, they’ll constantly gnaw at not only food supplies, but also walls, electrical wiring and timber furniture, resulting in costly damage.

In addition to this, their fur, saliva and droppings contain a range of nasty germs and diseases – not the items that you’d want on your menu!

Signs of a rodent infestation

• As nocturnal pests, you’ll be more likely to see rodents in the evenings, when hosting your evening and nighttime guests
• Rodent droppings look like black rice grains, ranging from 3-18mm long
• Look for food scraps and crumbs lying scattered around, and spilled food from ripped packaging
• Listen out for squeaking, thumping, scratching and gnawing sounds coming from your roof and walls

Stop a rodent rampage at your venue

• Maintain excellent hygiene standards, including frequent handwashing and thoroughly cleaning your venue, including surfaces, dining and preparation areas
• Regularly inspect and cover all access points on your roof. Check vents and chimneys, and underneath doors as well
• Ensure that waste is properly stored and covered
• Regular yard maintenance removes hiding spots for rodents, so if you have plants, trees and shrubs, keep them well trimmed. Keep lawns mowed and tidy and remove piles of vegetation

Professional rodent management

Allstate uses targeted rodent baits and physical traps to control rowdy rodents at your venue.

From stovetops to toilet seats, ants march far and wide to forage for food. They encounter many different types of bacteria, viruses and bugs on their adventures and spread them all over your venue if left unchecked. What’s more, their bites can sting and trigger allergies.

Identifying an ant outbreak

• You notice ants marching along well-defined trails
• Carpenter ants nest in timber structures and will leave behind piles of wood shavings on the floor, also known as frass

Tips to keep ants away from your venue

• Practice proper food storage, keep supplies tightly sealed inside cupboards and pantries
• Clear away food spills and crumbs from floors and surfaces immediately
• Regularly disinfect food preparation and dining areas
• Avoid leaving dirty utensils, dishes and cutlery unwashed in the sink
• Look for potential entry points and seal them
• Mow any outdoor areas regularly and remove fallen or rotten fruit, as well as piles of vegetation
• Check that rubbish bins and skips have properly fitted lids and keep waste sealed in sturdy bags

Professional ant control

At Allstate, our technicians use a combination of chemical baits, targeted insecticide and ant control dust treatments to combat annoying ant outbreaks.

With the constant threat of pest outbreaks at hospitality venues, it’s essential to be covered by the most reliable pest management solutions to keep your business running smoothly.

Locally operated since 1986, Allstate has provided high quality pest control services to homes and businesses in all suburbs of Adelaide.

Available 24/7 for urgent advice, our highly trained pest technicians are fully equipped with modern pest-detecting tools and innovative, non-toxic treatments, which can be seamlessly integrated into a personalised pest management program for your venue.

Covered by comprehensive warranty, our pest management program will ensure that your venue stays open for business and compliant to government regulations for the long haul.

Well known for spreading diseases, cold-blooded cockroaches cannot regulate their bodies in cooler temperatures, and rely on the warmth, shelter and food in your home to survive. With the cockroach population peaking in summer, you’ll see them increasingly seeking refuge in your home as the mercury drops.

How to tell if you have a cockroach issue

• As nocturnal creatures, you’re more likely to see them when they’re active at night
• As they grow bigger, cockroaches leave behind moulted outer skins which are thin and pale-yellow in colour
• Cockroach droppings can vary in length depending on the species, but resemble coffee grounds and can give off a musty odour

Safeguarding your home from a cockroach issues

• Inspect your home for potential entry points and either cover or fill them
• Check the plumbing around your home for leaking pipes and drains and repair them as cockroaches thrive in moist environments
• Remove food sources by keeping your kitchen and dining areas clean, wipe away food spills and grease around your stove and oven, keep your dishwasher clean, and ensuring that food and rubbish is covered tightly
• Practice good hygiene by washing your hands with soap and water before and after food preparation, handling waste and coming into contact with contaminated surfaces

With the rodent population peaking in late summer and early autumn, and food sources dwindling as autumn progresses, rodents become increasingly active in their search for alternative resources and shelter. Unfortunately, this could lead them straight inside your home!

Spot a rodent infestation

• While they can be hard to spot, you’re more likely to physically see them scurrying about at night as they are nocturnal
• Listen for squeaking, scratching, scurrying and scampering sounds coming from your roof and walls
• Rodent droppings usually look like black grains of rice, and range from 3-18mm in length, and give off an unpleasant, musty odour
• Unexplained gnawed and partially eaten food items left scattered around your home
• Gnaw marks appearing on your walls, timber furniture, cables and walls
• Rodent nests are typically well hidden, but are constructed from foraged material scraps such as wood, straw, paper, fabric and cardboard
• Grease marks may appear on your walls and skirtings from rodent fur

How to stop a rodent problem

• Inspect your home, especially your roof, for possible entry points and seal them over
• Avoid leaving food items out in the open. Instead, keep them stored away in sturdy containers or packaging
• Keep rubbish bins and compost properly covered
• Cover vents with a fine mesh and install grates or caps on chimneys
• Fit weather strips around windows and draught excluders under doors
• Regular yard maintenance including keeping shrubs and trees trimmed, lawns mowed, disposing fallen fruit and piles of organic waste

With many pests such as blowflies attracted to rotting waste to feed and lay eggs, it won’t take long for an outbreak to happen if you’re away on holidays.

That’s why it’s important to empty your rubbish bins before you head off. Keep waste in tightly sealed bags in bins with well-fitted lids. It’s important to ensure that all compost is properly covered, and not left on the ground for easy access.

Reducing attractants to your yard, access points to your home and hiding spots for pests can make a big difference to the number of uninvited guests that come over while you’re away. Here’s some of our suggestions to cultivating a pest-free yard:

• Remove piles of vegetation, including nesting material such as loose leaves and twigs
• Mow your lawns regularly
• Keep bushes, shrubs and overhanging tree branches trimmed away from your roof and walls to limit the number of access points to your home
• Remove pet waste, fallen fruit, vegetables and nuts
• Store piles of wood away from your home and above the ground if possible
• Remove visible spider webs from trees, pot plants and around pipes
• Remove nesting material from your roof and gutters
• Cover outdoor furniture, equipment and shoes
• Make sure that pet food, bird and chicken feed is tightly stored away

With the ability to squeeze through the smallest and most unlikely spaces, clever pests can easily enter your home if left unchecked. The key is to regularly inspect your home for potential access points and seal them off promptly. Here’s what we recommend to deny nuisance pests an easy passage inside your home:

• Install fly or mesh screens over vents, windows and doors
• Fit weather strips around windows and doors
• Cover gaps underneath doors with draught excluders
• Inspect your home for gaps, cracks, crevices and holes and fill them with caulk, putty, expanding foam, silicone or other appropriate waterproof sealants
• Inspect your roof for loose tiles and repair them
• Seal off vents with tough, fine mesh
• Install chimney grates or caps

If you’re finding yourself being plagued by pests despite your best DIY efforts, it’s time to call in the experts. At Allstate, our licensed pest technicians receive ongoing training to quickly detect and effectively manage pest outbreaks in the safest way possible.

We’ll identify the source of the infestation, then apply a deep understanding of pest behaviour and select the best targeted, family and pet-safe physical and chemical treatments. These include:

• Aerosol sprays, fumigation and fogging
• Control dust
• Traps and baiting stations

We also offer a range of pest prevention services designed to safeguard against potential future outbreaks:

Solar panel cleaning and proofing

Providing a safe, warm place for pest birds to nest underneath, solar panels are a common source of many pest bird outbreaks. You can protect your solar panels with Allstate’s solar panel proofing and cleaning service.

Property maintenance services

If you’ve had a previous pest outbreak, it’s important to clean up the mess left behind to avoid re-attracting pests to your home. At Allstate, we can refresh your home and yard with our comprehensive property cleaning and maintenance services before you travel, ensuring that you can return to a sparkling clean, pest-free home.

Many pests rely on a source of water to thrive, so combining increase in temperature with higher levels of humidity provides the perfect conditions for many pests to flourish.

From sprinklers, backyard bird baths and ponds, overflowing pot plants, to leaking plumbing and appliances, pests are clever at seeking out sources of moisture wherever the mercury heats up.

For pests that live within colonies underground, such as subterranean termites and ants, the increased dampness in the soil will also cause a spike in population growth.

Wooden structures can also absorb more moisture in hot, humid weather. This attracts pests such as carpenter ants, subterranean termites and cockroaches.

For many pests, the hot weather doesn’t just make them more active. It speeds up their reproductive and life cycles. This means that you’ll see more pests reaching their reproductive age sooner. As a consequence, outbreaks can happen quicker in summer, and you’ll need to act fast if you want to bring the problem under control. Here are some pests that you’ll need to watch for in a summer heatwave:

• Mosquitoes mature between an optimum temperature range of 25-30 degrees Celsius
• Flies take about 7-10 days to become adults, but this is faster in hot weather
• Fleas normally develop from an egg to an adult in about 2 months, but in summer, this process can be sped up to about 3 weeks
• The ideal breeding conditions for cockroaches are 29-35 degrees Celsius