Saint-Liboire, a municipality in the Montérégie region neighbouring Saint-Hyacinthe and crossed by Highway 20, combines residential areas and farmland, with a few commercial and office buildings along its traffic routes. It was in a four-storey office building near the highway that a property manager noticed mice in the mailroom and basement storage areas. In a professional work environment, the presence of rodents damages the image of the tenant company, seriously disturbs employees and can cause costly damage to electrical cables and archived documents. The manager called on our team in Saint-Liboire, who planned an intervention outside office hours to guarantee total discretion with regard to the tenants.
Methodical inspection of the office building
The initial inspection was conducted on a Friday evening, after all offices had closed. The team focused its research on risk areas specific to office buildings: common kitchens on each floor, mailroom, paper archives, technical rooms, wiring plenums above false ceilings and false floors on the ground floor. Traces of gnawing on network cables in the basement computer room, droppings in several ground-floor false ceiling boxes, and rudimentary nests in paper archive boxes stacked on the floor confirmed the presence of a well-established colony. The rodent infestation inspection revealed that the mice were accessing the building through poorly sealed air conditioning ducts in the parking lot side foundation wall. The proximity of the surrounding agricultural fields, from where rodents migrate to the heated buildings as the cold weather approaches, increased the intrusion pressure. The presence of dense ornamental plants on the main façade also facilitated climbing to the openings on the ground floor located at height. Two internal circulation routes have been identified: one through the spaces above the false ceilings of the central corridor, the other through the technical column housing the security system cables. A power cable for the lighting system had gnawing that had partially exposed the conductor, representing a fire hazard reported as a priority to the building’s management.
Targeted therapy adapted to the professional environment
The extermination of mice in this building in Saint-Liboire was planned in two phases of work carried out on Friday evening and Saturday, for a complete restoration before the resumption of activities on Monday morning. Mechanical traps have been deployed in the accessible false ceilings, under the storage units of the common kitchens and in all the technical rooms on each floor. Numbered secure bait stations have been positioned along the basement walls, in the boiler room and in the mechanical room. The gnawing damaged wiring has been carefully documented and reported in writing to the manager for priority repair by a qualified electrician, to eliminate any risk of fire. The technicians photographed each station deployed to feed the monitoring reports given weekly to the property manager. For another type of intervention in a commercial environment, consult our mouse realization in residential and commercial environments.
Sealing and Preventive Measures for Commercial Buildings
The caulking of the entry points included sealing the air conditioning ducts through the foundation wall with acrylic sealant reinforced with steel wool, the installation of galvanized fine-mesh mesh on all the exterior air intakes, and the sealing of the junctions between the wall cables and the trim plates on each floor. The ornamental plants on the façade were pruned at a minimum distance of fifty centimetres from the building, thus eliminating the vector of climbing towards the high openings. The manager received a guide of recommendations adapted to office buildings: instructions for airtight storage in all common kitchens, a protocol for cleaning countertops after each use, and a procedure for checking the joints of doors and windows in the basement on a monthly basis. A semi-annual pest prevention plan including two inspection visits per year was adopted by the manager to keep the building free of rodents in the long term. Four weeks after the initial treatment, no mouse activity was detected in the entire building, and employees returned to a fully safe working environment. Nova Extermination, a certified exterminator in Montérégie, understands the specific requirements of commercial buildings and adapts its interventions to avoid any disruption to professional activities.