Environmental Health & Safety
Pest Control Unit
Pest Control Complaint Calls
Pest Control problems can be in general broken down into there tiers of urgency : emergency , priority, or routine . This urgency guide applies to off-hours as the Pest Control Unit (PCU) is staffed only on non-holiday weekdays from 8:30am -5:00pm. This guide is primarily a tool for Public Safety to use to determine if and when to contact the PCU. It also sets the expectation in terms of response and response time to PCU customers.
A emergency pest problem would generally require a call when Public Safety is called. In general, a emergency call would be a situation where an imminent health/safety or property hazard exits.
Examples of Emergency calls include:
- A confirmed opossum, skunk, raccoon or squirrel inside a habitable space.
- A uncaptured bat in a patient care area or any enclosed and occupied space where the occupant must remain, or discovered in a space where an individual had been asleep.
- Uncaptured bird in a patient room that is occupied or needs to be occupied.
- Rat (confirmed rat, not a mouse) in an occupied space.
- Severe roach infestation in a patient care area (ie: new patient arrives with many roaches crawling all over personal belongings)
- A swarm of bees inside an occupied room where the occupant must remain
- Bed bugs seen in hospital patient care areas (Environmental Services should be called FIRST - not Pest Control during off-hours.)
In emergency cases #1 and #2, and #3, if the animal is near a window or door that can be opened, that may be the easiest and quickest remedy, as our response time from the call to arrival at the scene with the correct equipment or pesticides will generally take 60 minutes or possibly longer. Give the animal some time to leave and stay away from the exit way. HOWEVER, if a bat was discovered in a room with a sleeping individual, or otherwise was known to have been in direct physical contact with an individual, Public Safety MUST be called and Pest Control dispatched to capture the bat for testing due to the risk of rabies.
An off- hour priority pest problem would not generally require a call to Tristan Kasper or a pest control technician. For example, if the call came in to Public Safety late at night or in the early morning hours, it could wait until the next morning when the technicians report to work. A message could be left on the general EH&S phone line at 275-3241 for the technicians and they would respond to it first thing in the morning when they came in. If the call comes in the middle of the night and the next morning is a non-working day, the PCU should be contacted that next day at home after 8:00 am rather than just leave a message at our office.
Examples of Priority calls would be:
- A bat in an unoccupied space or hallway.
- Bees or wasps confined to a room that can stay unoccupied for a period of time
- Mice sighting in a patient care area
- Minor roach problem noted in a patient care area
- Birds inside occupied space, other than patient care areas (however, where there are very high ceilings, there may be little we can do about it). As in cases 1-3 above, opening a door may offer the quickest resolution
- Wild animals outside acting strangely
- Bed bugs in residential housing
- Bed bugs in out-patient centers (Could be upgraded to an "emergency" if many bedbugs are noted coming off a patient or belongings)
Complaints of roaches, mice, ants, flies, bees (outside), and most other pests, especially if outside, can generally be considered a routine call and can be called into the EH&S voice mail for service the next working day. Also, we do not provide the service of removing dead mice from traps after normal working hours. The complainant can throw away the entire trap and we will set new one the next working morning. The PCU does not remove dead animals from University grounds unless caught in one of our traps. Instead, contact University Facilities.
Lastly, any routine pest problem has the potential to being bumped up into the priority or emergency category if special circumstances exist where health, safety and property could be affected.
QUESTIONS or COMMENTS?
Contact EH&S at (585) 275-3241 or e-mail EH&S Questions.
This page last updated 10/6/2023. Disclaimer.
