Depending on where you live, cockroaches may be a common sight. Big cities, like New York, are notorious for being roach havens. However, there should be some places where roaches are simply not allowed. For example, nobody wants to attend a restaurant that has a roach infestation. But you would be surprised at how many restaurants are forced to temporarily close as a result of state violations related to roaches and other pests. As you would expect, many of these roach infested restaurants are located in regions where roach populations are high. Restaurants located in southern Florida are likely to be serving food to roaches as well as to customers. State employed food inspectors hand out an average of three pest-related citations per day to restaurant owners in the Palm Beach area.
Over the course of one single year, 1,377 restaurants in the Palm Beach area were cited for pest-related violations. Some of these pests were rodents, but many of the citations involved roaches, as roaches are hard to eradicate. One Palm Beach restaurant was cited for containing ninety nine dead roaches. This same restaurant was also found to have a roach egg-sac in a rice storage bin. One expert believes that the general public should be worried when numerous pest-related citations are handed out to different restaurants.
Ken Kuscher has been a state certified food inspector for thirty five years and he claims that roach infestations in restaurants could cause illnesses. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, roaches carry a variety of harmful bacteria that can cause salmonella, staphylococcus and streptococcus if they make contact with the food that you eat. In addition to that, roaches can leave behind skin sheddings that can cause illness. Even allergies and asthma can result from eating food that contains roach saliva and the discarded skins of roaches, this is more likely to occur in children. It may not be a bad idea to look into your favorite restaurant’s history of pest-related citations before returning for a bite to eat.
Have you ever spotted an insect within a restaurant?
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