"Rats, call pest control." "Abate roaches." "Employee fingernails must be clean."

"Presence of flies."

"Nasty."

Those appetite-killing words are not what you want to see written about your favorite restaurant, but for some of Durham's dining establishments, that's exactly what health inspectors wrote on their sanitatition reports earlier this month.

The first week of October was particularly brutal. In seven months of publishing restaurant sanitation reports, some in today's paper are among the harshest.

Typically, restaurants get cited for failing to properly heat or cool foods, improperly storing food or having dirty dishes, cooking utensils or pots and pans. While these are all offenses that potentially could pose health risks, they don't turn stomachs like the mention of roaches and flies -- or dirty fingernails.

You won't find those words on any of the sanitation placards that restaurants are required to prominently display. So as consumers, we aren't privy to what's behind the numbers on them. We just hope a low rating might just mean someone forgot to wear a hair net or a spoon was improperly washed.

Maybe if those restaurants that did poorly were also required to display their actual reports, they'd clean up their acts. After all, if you see one that simply says "nasty," you might have second thoughts about reserving a table.