My Restaurant Just Got Cited for Roaches on a Health Inspection, What Do I Do Now?

You knew the inspector was coming, you thought things looked fine, and then the report came back with a roach violation. Maybe someone saw one near the line, or they found droppings behind the fryer, or there was evidence in the dry storage room. Whatever specifically got flagged, you’re now sitting with a citation and trying to figure out how bad this actually is and what needs to happen before your next inspection.

How serious is a roach citation actually?

Serious enough to take action on immediately, not in a few days. Health departments in Hernando County don’t typically close a restaurant over a single roach sighting unless the infestation is severe or there are multiple critical violations at once, but a roach citation is a critical violation, meaning it directly affects the score and it’s the kind of thing that follows the restaurant on the public inspection record. Anyone who looks up your inspection online is going to see it, and in Spring Hill where word travels fast and people check those records before they try somewhere new, that matters a lot.

Does this mean you have a full blown infestation?

Not necessarily, but it means roaches are active enough in your facility that an inspector spotted signs of them during a routine walk through. That’s a different situation than a single roach that wandered in from outside. By the time evidence is visible to someone doing an inspection, there’s usually more going on behind the scenes than what they actually documented. Roaches are nocturnal and they hide well, so if they’re showing up during the day or leaving enough droppings to catch an inspector’s eye, the population is established enough to be reproducing somewhere in the building.

What happens if you don’t fix it before the follow up?

A follow up inspection is typically scheduled within a few days to a couple of weeks depending on the severity of the citation. If the same issue is still present at the follow up, the consequences get more serious, additional fines, a lower score that gets posted publicly, and in repeated cases, potential suspension of the operating permit. Most health departments want to see documentation that you’ve taken corrective action, which usually means having a licensed pest control company come in and being able to show a service record when the inspector comes back.

What do you actually need to do right now?

The first call is to a licensed commercial pest control company, not the residential spray service you might use at home, and not a can of something from the hardware store. Commercial kitchens have specific treatment requirements, products that are approved for use in food service environments, and areas that need to be treated in a way that doesn’t contaminate food prep surfaces or equipment. A residential pest control treatment applied in a commercial kitchen can actually create additional violations if the wrong products are used in the wrong areas.

The second thing is figuring out where they’re coming from and what’s been allowing them to stay. Roaches in a commercial kitchen almost always have a food source, a moisture source, and a spot that’s been undisturbed long enough for them to settle in. Behind and under equipment that doesn’t get moved during regular cleaning is one of the most common spots. The compressor area of a reach-in cooler, underneath a fryer that sits on the floor, behind a line of prep tables pushed against the wall. If those areas haven’t been pulled and cleaned recently, that’s usually where the problem is centered.

Can you handle this yourself with store bought products?

Not in a way that’s going to satisfy a health inspector or actually solve the problem. Consumer roach products aren’t labeled for use in commercial food service environments, and using them in a kitchen that’s being inspected can create additional chemical contamination violations on top of the roach violation you’re already dealing with. More practically, the gel baits and spray products available at a hardware store aren’t going to get into the spots where a commercial roach population is actually living the way a professional treatment will.

What should you tell your staff right now?

A few things need to happen on the operational side while the pest control treatment is being scheduled and completed. Equipment needs to be pulled away from walls and cleaned underneath, drain covers need to be checked and cleaned since floor drains are a common spot where roaches set up, and dry storage needs to be gone through to make sure product isn’t sitting directly on the floor where roaches can access it easily. These aren’t substitutes for a professional treatment but they address the conditions that allowed the problem to develop and they show the follow up inspector that corrective steps were taken on multiple fronts, not just calling pest control and hoping for the best.

How long does it take to actually clear a roach problem in a commercial kitchen?

Longer than most people want to hear. A single treatment can significantly reduce the population, but roaches reproduce quickly and their egg cases aren’t always affected by the initial treatment, which is why follow up treatments are standard practice in commercial accounts. A reputable commercial pest control company will schedule a follow up service rather than doing one treatment and considering it resolved. For a health inspection follow up that’s coming in a week, the goal of the initial treatment is to knock the population down dramatically and eliminate the visible evidence, with ongoing service to finish clearing it out.

What does this mean going forward?

A one time treatment after a citation isn’t really a long term solution. Restaurants that stay clean on inspections and don’t end up back in this situation typically have a regular commercial pest control program in place, monthly or more frequently depending on the volume of the operation, so that roach activity is caught and addressed before it gets to the point of being visible to an inspector. The citation is a signal that something wasn’t being maintained, and the fix isn’t just treating this particular outbreak, it’s putting something in place so it doesn’t happen again.

If you just got cited and you need a licensed commercial treatment before your follow up inspection, our commercial pest control service works with restaurants in Spring Hill and can get out to you quickly, document the service for your inspection records, and set up an ongoing program so you’re not back in this situation six months from now.