When thinking of pest problems in retail and commercial buildings, most business owners probably only imagine the treatment expenses, and perhaps a bit about the replacement expenses for affected products. The expense of pests problems in retail and commercial buildings, however, extend far beyond the extermination bill.
The most common costs associated with pest problems in commercial retail buildings often include the following:
Expenses Related to Product Loss
Pests infest products. They chew through products before they’re put on display. They contaminate entire batches of food products. Pests that infest dry product goods (such as grain beetles and Indian meal moths) can infest an entire isle of a retail or commercial building, forcing the building manager to dump hundreds to thousands of dollars worth of product all in one go.
Pest problems in product losing expenses can get way more costly after going undetected. An infestation of small moths in the back of a building can quickly lead to an infestation in the sales areas, forcing managers to remove the entire inventory in an entire treatment and cleaning procedure.
Restaurant managers can lose entire coolers, retail store managers can lose entire seasonal products right before its peak selling season, etc.
The expense of lost products doesn’t only apply to the value of the products themselves, though. The time it takes all of those buildings’ staff members to identify the infested product, remove it from sales areas, and for cleaning and re-stocking processes adds value as well.
Expenses Related to Customer Loss
This is where things get costly. A customer who sees a mouse, cockroach or some other pest in a retail or commercial building usually never gives that building another chance. They leave, they tell people, and people are increasingly able to share their experiences on social media.
One review that mentions seeing pests in a building can dominate search results on review websites for years to come.
The reputational damage of pest problems can cost retail and commercial building managers related to every industry. Restaurant managers can immediately see their reservation lists plummet. Retail store managers can see customers walking out while standing in line at the register. Hotel managers can receive refund requests that plummet their ratings on travel booking sites for months.
For retail and commercial buildings that rely on popular opinion and repeat customers to maintain a certain sale volume, one pest problem can cost thousands in lost sales.
Building goodwill with customers takes time.
Health Department Violations and Related Expenses
Pest problems in certain types of retail and commercial buildings lead to regulatory consequences, and the expenses related to those consequences can pile up fast.
Health department inspectors have the power to close restaurants. They also have the power to close supermarkets and other food production/retail buildings. The physical act of closing these buildings costs their managers potential income while their buildings aren’t generating any revenue.
Health department inspections aren’t cheap either. The fines related to violations that the health department inspectors find during their inspections can range anywhere from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars depending on the severity of the violations and local regulations.
Repeat violations only increase those costs. On top of that, they also risk getting the licenses of restaurant buildings suspended.
Buildings that fall under the authority of health departments need documentation of pest management activities from their pest management company. Commercial exterminators provide building managers with written documentation of services provided by the exterminator, as well as treatment records from other visits.
These documents can help building managers with regulatory compliance.
The documents can also help them avoid violations that build up costly fees.
Damage Repairs
Some pests damage property in ways that require extensive services. Rodents chew on wires. Rodents damage walls, ceilings, pipes, HVAC ducts, sheathing materials, etc. All of these damages require the help of electricians and construction workers to fix. In many cases, repairing this hidden electrical damage safely requires the expertise of commercial electricians.
Rodents cost managers repair costs that can cost them tens of thousands of dollars depending on how long they’ve been living in a building.
Termites are a bit more unique. They don’t cause costly damages like rodents. Instead, they cost their victims various amounts of fees depending on the length of their infestation.
Carpenter ants, however, can actually eat through wooden buildings once their populations reach certain sizes. Building managers can end up caught up in disagreements with tenants over who pays for damage repairs.
Costs Related to Business Interruptions
Most pest problems in retail and commercial buildings lead to some type of interruption to the building’s operations. Hotel room heat treatments for bed bugs take up to 5 days (depending on the size of the rooms) to cool down after they’ve been treated. Affected areas can suffer from fumigation for a couple of hours up to days.
Another unique aspect of commercial buildings is that they have a lot of limitations when it comes to the types of organizations that use them. This means that when one organization gets fumigated, it requires the temporary relocation of that organization’s entire staff.
The costs related to this downtime can add up quickly. The interruption alone can cost some companies double digit losses every hour of lost opportunity. Restaurant managers could lose 2 full days’ worth of business after paying their fixed rental costs for their restaurant buildings or equipment.
Retail shop managers could lose dozens of customers while treatment procedures are still taking place.
Office building managers may face losses in productivity levels of their employees that take forever to recover after a temporary move to another location.
Pest management programs help managers avoid these costly interruptions, especially when these interruptions happen during especially busy times of the year (the busiest time of year, the busiest time of the day, etc.)
Cost of Preventing Pest Problems in Comparison With Other Costs
Pest problems can cost managers of retail and commercial buildings all kinds of costs. After considering all of these costs that pest problems bring about, restaurant managers and office managers may reconsider the cost of other costs related to preventing pest problems.
Many retail and commercial buildings experience busy seasons, so paying someone to prevent pests from infesting their building monthly or quarterly is nothing compared to randomly throwing thousands of dollars worth of products in the trash when an entire batch gets infested.
Emergency treatment requests are also way costlier than scheduled visits by a pest management program.
