Rodent Control in Bloomfield

Bloomfield sits between Lawrenceville, Shadyside and Friendship with Liberty Avenue down the middle. Little Italy. Bakeries, delis, pizza shops and bars on the avenue. Narrow brick and frame houses on the side streets, a lot of them attached or close enough to touch.

Food on the avenue, tight housing everywhere else. Mice slip from house to house. Rats live in the alleys and along the back fences. Most of these houses are old enough that nobody remembers what's behind the basement paneling.

Mice in the back kitchen addition

A lot of Bloomfield houses have a kitchen or bath stuck on the back, sitting on block piers or a shallow crawl space. Those additions were rarely tied in tight to the original foundation. Mice find that seam and follow the plumbing right up into the kitchen. That's why people here so often have mice in the kitchen and nothing in the main basement. Our page on crawl spaces and basements covers what gets checked under there.

The other route is the walkway. Houses sit a few feet apart with a narrow passage between them that stays shady and damp. Mice use it. Gaps at the bottom of the siding, cracked parging on the foundation and basement windows with busted screens along that walkway are where they get in. Mice are the top call here in fall and winter, and the job is usually trapping plus sealing the sill and walkway side.

• The seam where the back addition meets the house
• Shaded side walkways
• Cracked parging on the foundation
• Basement windows with broken screens

Trash night on Liberty Avenue

The delis, bakeries and restaurants on Liberty handle flour, produce and food scraps every day. Rats come from the alleys behind them and mice come through old shared basements. Businesses on the avenue usually set up regular commercial visits.

The side streets near the avenue feel it. On trash night, cans line the alleys behind the shops and the houses alike, and rats go back and forth between them. Put yours out late with the lid on tight and your house falls off the route. Recycling counts too. Rinse the sauce jars and the takeout containers before they go in the bin, because rats can smell what's left. If you're seeing burrows by the back fence or a rat by the cans, ask about rat trapping and locked stations. Rats on public property go to 311.

Down the hill, Lawrenceville row houses have the same shared-wall mice, and Shadyside next door has the converted-house version of it.

Around Bloomfield: Liberty Avenue · Friendship Park · West Penn Hospital · Ella Street · Cedarville Street · Little Italy Days on Liberty Avenue (ZIP 15224)

Also serving Lawrenceville, South Side Flats and Slopes, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Mount Washington, Polish Hill, Brookline, Mt. Lebanon, Millvale.