Prestigious Hotels Podcast Transcript

Below is the transcript of our recent podcast:  Pest Management in Prestigious Hotels.  You can listen to this podcast here.

Neil Foley

Welcome, everybody, to another episode with Abate Pest Management. And today I’m with Stewart  Howard, operations manager, and we're going to talk about hotels. Is that right, Stewart?

Stewart Howard

That's right. Hello again.

Neil Foley

We thought hotels would be an interesting topic because we've had some real success with Central London hotels in particular. These are five star and probably six star establishments.

Stewart Howard

These are real top end hotels.

Neil Foley

It'd be useful just to talk about how you did the initial surveys with a couple of these hotels in terms of when you first went along. I know one of them had a problem, but one didn't. Let's talk about the one that had a problem to start with. How did that come about in terms of us actually getting in there?

Stewart Howard

One of the guys that was actually on the site, who's now becoming the director of engineering already knew of basically Abate from a previous company he worked at. He wasn't having the best of times with the national company that he was using. Didn't feel that they were actually doing a particularly good job. And sometimes you've really got to hold their hand. So he wasn't feeling particularly loved, and he came to us and Jon asked me to obviously go up and have a look. There were aspects of (their current service) it that they were missing and things like that. I don't like rubbishing other companies in our industry, but there was just a bit of a lax approach to what was happening. With a five star hotel, you've got quite a lot of hand holding and you've got to be discreet in what you're doing.

Neil Foley

Actually they had a mouse problem, didn't they, from memory and in front of house?

Stewart Howard

In front of house  So in probably the worst position, the worst place possible for them. Guests were seeing mice running around in the restaurant area.

Neil Foley

In the restaurant?

Stewart Howard

Restaurant area and front of house.

Neil Foley

Blow me. Okay. So presumably the existing pest company were trying to solve that.

Stewart Howard

They were, but they weren't being particularly as proactive as they probably should have done.

Neil Foley

Why would they be like that? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

Stewart Howard

What tends to happen, unfortunately, with big multinationals is you become a number. You don't become a client or customer and everything else. So they were kind of going through the motions. They weren't actually sort of looking at it. I think they looked at it probably that it was a continuing thing that they could keep charging for.

Neil Foley

So it's nothing about the quality of the techs because their technicians would normally be quite high quality?

Stewart Howard

Yeah, very good technicians. But I think with multinational companies, bigger, larger multinational companies, they didn't probably have the time to spend on site. And the way that I approached it was I would give the technician that obviously in the end took over that site the time to actually investigate thoroughly where the problems were. Now, in a situation like that in the middle of London, in a massive hotel, it was quite difficult to find where they're coming from. Obviously, you've got to find where mice are coming from. So just constant investigating.

Neil Foley

So is that what you did in terms of you went out there and have a look, could see there was a problem and then it was all about, as you said, trying to work out the routes that the mice were using?

Stewart Howard

On the initial survey that I did, I found multiple possible ingress points and places like that in the restaurant, in the restaurant area and in the lounge areas and places like that, where people obviously still eat and food waste accumulates.

Neil Foley

So these were small holes?

Stewart Howard

Yeah, little holes. And it was just the way that the buildings built because they're really old buildings. It was quite an old building and where they're sort of clad with marble it still leave voids behind the back. The mice are utilising these little holes. So on the front of it, it looks very plush and very posh and everything else behind some of the cladding and everything else, it's the old part of the building. And obviously externally, there's lots of places in London on these buildings that are ingress points and that's exactly how they were getting in. So we went in with a glue board treatment to try and …

Neil Foley

Knock it on the head…

Stewart Howard

Knock it down really quickly because we knew that baits weren't working.

Neil Foley

So baits had been tried…

Stewart Howard

Been put down, and obviously with Snapbacks, they're blunder traps, so you're only ever going to catch one and they've got to really happen across it. It doesn't really matter how much or what sort of lure you put in there, they've got to find that trap and it's only ever one. But with a glue board in treatment, you can put out hundreds of glue boards and you will probably take out a family of mice rather than just the one every now and again.

Neil Foley

And I suppose there's lots of food sources around, et cetera.

Stewart Howard

Yes, Integrated Pest Management. The integrated aspect of it is making sure that the customer is actually working with us. So speaking to their in house cleaning team, increasing cleaning schedules, telling them places to basically to look and be more vigilant.

Neil Foley

What sort of places would that be?

Stewart Howard

Well, there was big sofas and everything else in the restaurant area. Obviously, when you're cleaning, when people are eating, certain things were going underneath sofas and things like that that were out of sight, but obviously a mouse is going to see it. So if a chip is fallen, obviously in my initial survey, I pointed out that there was various bits of food underneath some of the sofas units, tables that were out of sight that initially it just looks that it's nice and clean, but obviously you need to delve a little bit deeper.

Neil Foley

And were they using poison already?

Stewart Howard

So there was various areas where they were actually physically baiting with poisons, whether it be pasta or grains and things like that. But the problem being in front of houses, you can't have too much out and on show it all has to be outside, of course, and it's quite difficult to put down a box that's outside without someone seeing it, so you're limited to where you can put things. They've got these built in radiators that are below ground, where they've got these vents that come up. So it's all pipe work, old pipe work that obviously the mice were travelling along, there was snapbacks in those and things like that, but it just wasn't quite enough. So, like I say, on top of we use the digital traps.

Neil Foley

Yeah, I was going to come on to that because the poison in my layman's head, the big problem with the poison is that the rodent is going to disappear, feel unwell, so go and find some shelter somewhere nice and dark and warm and die in rot and….

Stewart Howard

Smell! And smell in a five-star hotel. It's really not that you want to be doing so. We really wanted to go away from using poisons. Sometimes you just can't get around it, you've got to use it. But we wanted to use the signal traps, which are monitored. We've got these digital traps and it tells us yes when something's been caught. They're quite smart, it knows when it's been bumped, it knows when it's actually caught something.

Neil Foley

Caught and you know which one, which trap has been set off?

Stewart Howard

It will tell us exactly what track and where. But it also tells them as well, on site, their engineering department know as well, because there's a portal that they can look at and they can see. But the benefit of that is if a trap is in a slightly wrong position, that cleaners are bumping, it constantly we can move it.

Neil Foley

So the digital side and this is one where we set up via their Wi-Fi?

Stewart Howard

Yes. So the router goes in, connects piggybacks to their Wi-Fi and it's a wide area network, so it will cover a big area and one router with all of the traps covered, basically two floors of traps, so it fits in quite well. It was a bit fiddling to start with and obviously sometimes with IT department team and other companies, they get a little bit twitchy over the security aspect of It, but because it's not actually sending out a signal that someone can connect to and it's not then a back door into their network, it actually just goes on to their network. And their firewall obviously protects the router as well.

Neil Foley

I know with glue boards. We have to go every other day, don't we?

Stewart Howard

Every day.

Neil Foley

Sorry.

Stewart Howard

We can't keep them down, that's the thing. So in this instance, we had to go in and it was an overnight process so we could put them down. You would like to keep them down for as long as possible, but because obviously it's front of house, where we needed to put them down, count them out, count them back in again. And we really only had five to six hours that we could have them down.

Neil Foley

This was in the wee hours of the morning, I guess. I suppose again, thinking about these hotels, they're 24/7, there isn't a quiet time.

Stewart Howard

The good thing is, obviously, when you get friendly with the engineering department, the cleaning department and everything else, they're the ones that can tell you where the big areas are that are going to be used and things like that. Bars can be closed off, restaurants can be closed off, and it goes over to room service only, that sort of thing. So obviously you don't want to leave these boards down and someone starts looking across them.

Neil Foley

And the digital traps, if the trap in say loading bay two, or whatever traps gone, would somebody from engineering go and have a look?

Stewart Howard

They would normally, if they've got the portal aspect of it, they would go and have a look. We've given them some onsite training as to what to look for. Everything else, we wouldn't expect them to take it out or reset it, but sometimes they'll come and have a look and just double cheque before a technician goes out and say there's definitely one (mouse) in it.

Neil Foley

So the first hotel in particular, they had a problem and you were able to give them confidence that we’ll help. We didn't even agree a price, did we? We just said, actually, we'll just demonstrate our expertise.

Stewart Howard

That was exactly what it was. Because obviously we've gone in and seen that a national company won't quite hit the mark with offering the service that they wanted. We wanted to go in and actually just sort of say that we'll do this and, you know, let us have a look. Because at that point, they were willing to try anything. They were even going to buy a hotel resident cat. So, yeah, they wanted us to go in and see what we could do. So it was a bit of a test.

Neil Foley

Yes.

Stewart Howard

And I think in that test we proved ourselves as well. But it wasn't just obviously going out and offering them the service. It's also that the technician is visible. So when the technician goes out, he's visible. He actually goes to see people and speak to people. I think with the national companies, they'll go in and they're not visible and they'll not really talk to anyone, and you'll just end up a report.

Neil Foley

We treat them very much as an advance site, don't we? In terms if we want them, as you say, to be visible.

Stewart Howard

Talking to Housekeeping, it's part of the Integrated Pest Management. So they're the ones that are there every day, they're the ones that will see the problems. So you need to talk to them. And then your first protocol of where to look, things like that. So you can then expand out from there.

Neil Foley

And of course there's other services that we can do.

Stewart Howard

Lots of add on services. Yeah, lots of add on services. So from just doing that we've got bird enquiries and things like that. We've had wasps jobs come up in the summertime and things like that. We've also just had a fogging treatment, resident suites which they're paying £3000 a night for. But like I said, you've got to be very discreet in what you're doing. Yes, discretion is the key. Places like it, but also the fact that they sort of click their fingers and you jump. Because we know that obviously we need to get out to these places very quickly. So very quick turnaround on someone reporting a problem and us going out and actually dealing with the problem because sometimes nationals don't do that.

Neil Foley

We've got the flexibility to do that.

Stewart Howard

We've got a hell of a lot of flexibility. We can move things around.

Neil Foley

And also it's a real feather in our cap when we get these contracts. We're really proud of them. And conversely then if we lost one we'd be absolutely gutted.

Stewart Howard

I'm very proud of it. The fact that we've sort of picked up some good contracts from national companies doing that sort of goes to show you that what we're doing is working. Yes, you've got two very happy prestigious hotels that turn around and say that they're really happy with what you're doing.

Neil Foley

And the second hotel that we picked up, they didn't actually have a problem.

Stewart Howard

No, they didn't have a problem.

Neil Foley

So what was the scenario around there? Was it just they were a little bit under pressure?

Stewart Howard

All of the hotels talk amongst themselves of course if they get a good service they'll say just check out this company because we've just taken them on. And that's exactly what happened.

Neil Foley

Was it?

Stewart Howard

One hotel spoke to the other hotel and just sort of said have a work with Stewart and let him come in and have a little look around. I spent a good 3 hours, 4 hours walking around with engineering, walking around all these places, seeing some of the issues and then just going from there really.

Neil Foley

And then it was just did you issue a report?

Stewart Howard

Yeah, did a report for them, said areas that I would recommend that needed looking at, things I would change to like electric fly killers in wrong positions.

Neil Foley

Do hotels have many electric fly killers?

Stewart Howard

Well, a good 30 odd electric fly killers across sort of different floors in cooking areas because there's multiple restaurants. So, yeah, there's always scope to improve and we're always looking to improve. So the first hotel that we got, we're improving as we go along, they're just in the middle of a massive refurb.

Neil Foley

So the second hotel was, as you say, because they all talk to each other and the rest of it, it was actually a long lead in time, wasn't it?

Stewart Howard

It was.

Neil Foley

We're not in any hurry, we've been around long enough, but it was a long lead in time.

Stewart Howard

It was. And again, it's down to this hand holding. They need to feel a bit of love and everything else. So it's been a long time sort of happening and all the goings on in the background and everything else. You don't want to hassle places like this. No. So every now and again, myself, Jon would just touch base with engineering and just sort of say, how's it going? And eventually we cross the line.

Neil Foley

Because pest control is for them as it is for most people, a relatively small part of their role.

Stewart Howard

It's a small aspect of what happens, but it's also a big aspect if it goes wrong. Absolutely.

Neil Foley

It's very visible.

Stewart Howard

Very visible and they can be shut down, but it comes to educating along the line. You educate them along the line and sort of say, if you get a problem in this area, it's very bad. So consider this and consider that.

Neil Foley

As you said, it's integrated pest management.

Stewart Howard

It's not just a case of putting poison down these days. No, it's come a long, long way since then. A long way since then.

Neil Foley

And I've always had a certain degree of sympathy for the bigger hotels because of their infrastructure, because they’ve got demanding guests, transient population, lots of food, Victorian drains and really old buildings.

Stewart Howard

Yes, very old building. Lots of ways in, lots of continual proofing. So what we've done at the other hotel is as and when we find proofing, measures that need to be carried out, the technician will do it there and then.

Neil Foley

Right.

Stewart Howard

So it is a constant thing. Obviously, we've got to redo quite a lot of that because it's in the middle of a refurb.. So you can see that some of what we've done has probably been undone and then they've probably added to it and made other ingress points that we need to deal with.

Neil Foley

It's like the Forth bridge, really, isn't it?

Stewart Howard

Yeah. You start running, start painting and when you get to the end, you go again.

Neil Foley

And as you said, we've done some fogging.

Stewart Howard

We can also handle fox management. Forcing out a resident fox.

Neil Foley

There's lots of bed bugs, which I guess will rear their heads at some point.

Stewart Howard

You don't want to be going in as a precautionary, sort of spraying for bedbugs unless there's anything there. But we have spoken to them and….

Neil Foley

Just said, we can monitor.

Stewart Howard

Yeah, we can monitor it. We can do certain inspections every now and again in certain places, because obviously the turnover of some of these suites and some of the rooms and everything else, if they've got high profile guests, staying, we can actually consult and say there's no issue. We can give it a clean bit of health before someone goes into that, because some of the residents are there for a long time.

Neil Foley

For a year, it seems amazing.

Stewart Howard

They’re paying a lot of money to basically live there for a year.

Neil Foley

And I know you've done that recently, where you were able to give a clean bill of health. And I suppose that's also true because all of the residents are coming from all over the world, and people's attitudes are totally different.

Stewart Howard

So totally different attitudes to insects, pests, anything you can bring in, that sort of thing.

Stewart Howard

And like you say, it's very transient, so something could quite easily be brought in by luggage and into these rooms.

Neil Foley

Easily done. So anybody listening who's thinking, do you know what, actually, I would like a second opinion. We're up for that, are we?

Stewart Howard

Definitely.

Neil Foley

With no obligation?

Stewart Howard

Like I say, there is no obligation. It's good for another set of eyes to come out, regardless of who your contractor is, and you'll get a warts and all report to say that there's a problem here or there's not a problem, or your contractor is doing very well, I'll be very open and honest with what's happening. Yeah.

Neil Foley

You're not a salesperson in that area, you're a techie.

Stewart Howard

Exactly. That's what I love.

Neil Foley

So if you're interested in thinking, you know what you'd like a second opinion or a survey, no charge or obligation, get in touch. But for now, that's been fascinating. Thank you.

Neil Foley

And until next time, everybody. Goodbye.