This warehouse complex consists of three large structures located in a suburban environment. Over time, the mouse problem on the property necessitated an increase in service to four times per month for all exterior rodent stations.
This client was committed to a next-generation pest management program. Because the buildings had aged, there was a desire for an increase in inspection and exclusion work. Rodenticides had been discontinued since 2011, so snap traps were the control used in all exterior rodent stations. The client was aware of the ActiveSense® system and was interested in the concept of remote monitoring, but unsure about the reliability.
ActiveSense® System Deployed
As a demonstration, ActiveSense was first used around one of the warehouse buildings. The system demonstrated that the alerts reliably notified of rodent activity. Alerts also showed trends with certain rodent stations being active at certain times of the year. Based on this trial, the client approved installing ActiveSense sensors in about 50 exterior rodent stations around the two main warehouse structures.
"We promote ActiveSense as providing peace of mind from 24/7/365 monitoring.” -- Patrick Boland, ACE, technical director, ScherZinger Pest Control
Monitoring and Results
- Reliability of alerts to indicate that a trap has snapped (whether it involved a rodent kill or not) has been close to 100%.
- The overall number of rodent kills has remained steady due to the heavy population in the area, but exterior station inspections have been reduced. With the ActiveSense® system deployed, exterior rodent station service on the first, second and third Mondays of the month is limited to stations that have had a snap activity. On the fourth Monday of the month, all exterior stations are inspected.
- Time saved has been shifted to proactive inspection of the interior of the warehouse, especially aisles and pallet storage areas.
- Data from ActiveSense is shared with the client and included on the service reports.
Service Technicians Benefit from the ActiveSense System
“My guys love ActiveSense. My supervisor and technicians are all kind of investigative geeks that like to do some looking and digging to find problems. It’s boring to have to go inspect station after station. The time ActiveSense saves us is now being used to do an inspection of the rest of the plant. That means our client reports are much more detailed in terms of deficiencies to the structure, particularly on the sanitation side of things. We’re seeing dog food and birdseed cleanups faster. That impacts even the insect side of things.” -- Patrick Boland, ACE, technical director, ScherZinger Pest Control