The Pests

German cockroaches, mice and rats, flies and drain flies, fruit flies, stored-product pests, ants and birds: biology and control at the standard a Board Certified Entomologist would sign.

• German Cockroaches in a Restaurant: How They Arrive, Where They Live, and What Actually Removes Them

  They ride in on deliveries and boxes, live where it is warm, wet and dark, and are removed by sanitation, bait, monitors that prove the kill, and cleanup of the droppings and dead. What the Salmonella research does and does not show.

• House Mice and Norway Rats: A Quarter Inch Is a Door

  Mice fit through a quarter inch; young rats fit under a half-inch door gap. Seal everything over a quarter inch, keep the sanitation going, and let the stations and traps do the rest, with the counts written down.

• Flies in a Kitchen: House Flies, Drain Flies, and the Film in the Drain

  House flies come through the door and breed at the dumpster. Drain flies breed in the film inside the drain, and only scrubbing it out removes them; boiling water alone will not. Never a fly strip over food.

• Fruit Flies: Find the Fermenting Thing

  Every fruit fly is a sign of something fermenting within a few yards. The fix is finding it: produce, drains, mop heads and buckets, recycling, the wet spot behind the bar.

• Stored-Product Pests in Dry Storage: Meal Moths, Grain Beetles, Flour Beetles and the Cigarette Beetle

  They come in with the product and live in it. Find the infested case, throw it out, put what stays in tight-lidded containers, inspect the next delivery, and let a pheromone monitor tell you when you are done.

• Ants in a Kitchen: Why a Spray Can Make Some Colonies Worse

  Baits, not sprays. For the Pharaoh ant, a spray can split the colony and spread it. That is documented for that species; this page does not generalize it to every ant.

• Birds at the Patio and the Dumpster: Pigeons and House Sparrows

  Birds are an exclusion and sanitation problem: netting, ledge deterrents, closed openings, screened vents, and a clean patio and dumpster. Droppings that accumulate are the health concern the sources name.