Rats And Mice - Responsibilities as a Business Owner

As a business owner in the brick-and-mortar world, you have several specific legal responsibilities that you owe your clients or customers.

If you are like a good number of business owners in Southern California, across the United States, or even the rest of the world, you may find yourself in a situation in which a patron of your enterprise alerts you to what the individual contends is an issue with mice or rats at your business.

When this happens, you need to understand that it is wise to follow up on the customer’s concerns from a customer service standpoint. Still, the notification triggers a moral and potentially legal duty, depending on your local laws.

We provide you with essential information about what you should do when you are advised of the presence of mice or rats on your business premises.

The Dangers of Mice or Rats in a Commercial Setting

Contents show

Rodents can cause dangers in a commercial setting that can threaten the safety and welfare of workers and patrons. There are two primary ways in which rodents can create hazards for clients or customers of a business:

Fire
Disease

By their very nature, rodents are animals that gnaw continually. This occurs for several reasons, including that incisors on rodents never stop growing, and they gnaw to trim these teeth. In addition, rodents gnaw to gain passage from one place to another and create materials that they can use for building a nest.

One type of object in a residence or business that attracts rodents like mice and rats are wires and electrical panels.

Rodents will gnaw on wires and related objects, removing the protective coating. This exposes the wires themselves, which can result in them sparking and igniting fires. Indeed, over 25 percent of all house fires are caused in this manner.

While statistics aren’t as definitive, a similar percentage of commercial fires are thought to be caused by rodents chewing on wires and objects related to the electrical system.

Disease is the second most common type of danger rodents pose in a commercial setting. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rodents can carry several diseases.

These include:

Salmonella
Hantavirus/hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
Leptospirosis
Plague
Rat-bite fever
Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome
Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM)

The pathogens that cause these diseases infect people in many different ways:

Rat bites
Rat feces
Fleas carried by rats
Rat urine
Rat saliva

Salmonella

In the United States, salmonella is the most common disease spread by rats. Most people refer to the illness as food poisoning or salmonella poisoning. Businesses in the food service industry are particularly prone to face issues regarding rats.

Rats can carry salmonella in rat saliva, droppings, and urine. A rat infestation can result in rat droppings and urine (even saliva) contaminating food and beverages. When contaminated items are consumed, a person can become infected.

Salmonella poisoning isn’t a catastrophic illness in nearly all cases. A minimal number of people have died as a result of this infection. These individuals tended to be elderly and otherwise ill, very young children, or people with compromised immune systems before infection.

In most cases, salmonella causes a person to be unpleasant for several days, suffering from nausea and diarrhea.

Hantavirus

Hantavirus is a different story. The disease hantavirus is more often than not spread via rodent droppings. This virus can persist or survive in rodent droppings for an extended period. Even after the feces dry out!

When rodent droppings dry out, they crumble easily. When that occurs, feces dust becomes airborne. It will carry along the hantavirus if a rat is a carrier of the pathogen.

If a person breathes the dust in –including a patron of a business – that individual can become infected with hantavirus.

Hantavirus infection can result in what is known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. There is no cure or treatment for this condition. 30 percent of people who suffer from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome will die.

Responsibilities When Advised of a Mouse or Rat Issue at Your Business

As a business owner, if you are advised by anyone that there appears to be a rodent issue at your store, office, or other location, a definite responsibility is triggered. Because rodents can jeopardize the well-being of patrons, as outlined a moment ago, a business owner has the responsibility to protect a client or customer against being harmed by those risks.

If you fail to take reasonable action to address a rodent issue at your business when you learn it exists and a client or customer is injured. As a result, your business can bear responsibility for the damages and losses the individual sustains.

For example, in the worst possible scenario, if a customer contracts hantavirus at your business (when you knew of rodent infestation), develops hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and dies – the family if the victim could pursue what is known as a wrongful death claim and lawsuit against your business (or you personally if your business is a sole proprietorship).

Be Aware Of Potential Risks

Even if you aren’t specifically aware of a rat issue at your business, you’ve another responsibility. You have a responsibility to be reasonably aware of any potential risks to others. This includes others at or on the premises of your business.

This includes being reasonably aware of the presence of rodents at or in your business.

“Reasonably aware” is defined as what a prudent person in the same position as a business owner would do under similar circumstances. When it comes to the prospect of rodent issues (and the dangers mice and rats potentially can present), a prudent person will engage in regular inspections of the premises to ascertain if there exists any evidence of this type of vermin at or in the premises.

Professional Rodent Dropping Cleaning to Satisfy Your Legal Duty Fully

If you’re a business owner that has had a rodent infestation at or on the premises, you not only need to eliminate the mice or rats themselves, but you need to make certain that remaining rat droppings are also remediated.

This is a responsibility when it comes to your clients of customers.

To ensure that rat feces (and the diseases they can carry) are fully eliminated, you need to consider engaging the services of an experienced, reputable rat droppings cleaning company.

Good luck!