Rodent Control on Mount Washington

The Duquesne Incline car climbing the hillside of Mount Washington in Pittsburgh — The Duquesne Incline. All that green on the hill is cover for mice and rats.

Everybody knows the view from Grandview Avenue. Behind the overlooks is a regular neighborhood. Older frame and brick houses on steep streets, Shiloh Street for coffee and a beer, and the Duquesne and Mon inclines still running up the face of the hill.

Most of the hillside around it is wooded and part of Emerald View Park. Nice for a walk. Also great cover for mice and rats, which work their way uphill into yards, garages and basements.

Garages dug into the hill

Mount Washington is a ridge. Streets run along the top and wind down the sides, and a lot of houses sit on lots that drop a full story from front to back. Garages often sit at street level, cut right into the hill, with earth on two or three sides. They stay cool and damp. Mice get in where the garage wall meets the hillside. Seal those corners and get the seed and dog food into metal cans. Same goes for the garbage cans if you keep them in the garage. Lids on, always.

On the downhill side, the foundation is often more exposed than the rest, and decks hang out over open ground. Rodents nest underneath and look for gaps in that exposed wall. That's why sealing hillside homes is such a big part of the work up here. Retaining walls holding up terraced yards are a favorite spot for rat burrows, which calls for yard burrow treatment.

Garage walls where they meet the hillside
Open space under decks and porches
Exposed foundation on the downhill side
Retaining walls along steps and terraced yards

First cold snap on the ridge

Up here you feel the wind and the cold before the rest of the city. When it drops, mice from the slopes come in fast. Sealing before the first cold snap is the right timing. The tech can walk the outside, note the gaps and quote it, then handle trapping whatever's already inside.

Rats are the other call. Rats on a hilltop surprise people, but the wooded slopes give them cover and they follow food to the yards and the cans. City steps and footpaths between streets have brushy edges they use to move yard to yard. Those calls lead to rat control around the yard. Shops and restaurants on Shiloh Street see some of it too, mostly behind the buildings. A tidy yard helps more up here than most places. Woodpiles, brush piles and the compost bin should sit well away from the house, not tucked against the foundation.

Plenty of houses up here have a long set of steps from the street. Tell us about access so the tech can plan for it. Down the hill, the South Side Slopes face the same woods, and Brookline has the same retaining walls.

Around Mount Washington: Grandview Avenue · Shiloh Street · Emerald View Park · Duquesne Incline · Monongahela Incline · Grandview Park (ZIP 15211)

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