to report workplace to environmental health

[OhdearNigel]

I do a some fairly regular casual shifts as a duty manager in a small hotel. I haven't been in for 2 weeks; I had two shifts this weekend and discovered the following:

1. There are several large holes in the kitchen ceiling
2. Rats are coming through the holes into the kitchen. The night porter described one as "the size of a cat"
3. The place is full of flies, it is clear that there is something dead somewhere and it looks as if that might be underneath the floorboards in the dry store. I fielded a lot of complaints about this issue over my shifts and must have killed at least 100 flies myself. I did my best over the weekend with limited resources to deal with the fly problem but fly spray and a swatter can only solve the symptom, not the cure. We tried to find a dead animal but nothing was found so it must be under the floorboards or in the chimney. I won't go into the background as I will be going on for hours. However, it is clear that the acting "manager" isn't really doing anything about the above issues. Would I be unreasonable in the circumstances to tip off environmental health ? It is disgusting that people are eating food prepared in a kitchen plagued with rats and flies.

Jesus!! Report report report!!!

Definatly report. You wouldn't want to eat there, why should anyone else?

Have done it :)

If you have gone to your manager & he has done nothing then yes quickly report.

Have you documented somewhere that this has been an ongoing problem & your efforts? Make a retrospective entry in your food/tempo diary if not, or you can be held accountable when the manager denies knowledge.

tempo = temperature of course!

He's known for over a week, they've put some rat poison down but exterminators haven't come in

I'm glad you reported it - it would be terrible if someone ended up seriously ill over it and you knew you could have prevented it. You've done the right thing.

Well done -did you document somewhere that you reported it &the manager knows ?

This will probably need shutting down- not just exterminators.

How awful would the manager feel if someone died ( not an unheard of scenario) as a result of eating contaminated food? That's how these awful outbreaks happen. He should be sacked.