Rodent Control in Polish Hill

Polish Hill is small and steep. Old, too. It climbs from the Strip District up toward the Hill District and Bloomfield, and the domes of Immaculate Heart of Mary on Brereton Street sit over narrow streets of small frame and brick houses, a lot of them over a hundred years old.

There's wooded slope, vacant lots and city steps between the streets. Add the warehouses and produce in the Strip right below, and there are plenty of rodents close by.

Rats coming up from the Strip

Rats from the Strip District and the rail corridor along the Allegheny move uphill through brush, alleys and vacant lots. The lower streets usually see it first. Burrows under back stoops and along retaining walls are a big share of the calls here, and a lot of them trace back to a vacant lot next door. Those jobs lean on yard burrow work: locked bait stations along the runways and treatment of the active holes.

If the lot next to you is the source, report it to 311. For your own house and yard, the tech can set stations and seal up your side. Our alley and trash guide covers how to report a lot. Note the address or the nearest cross street and what you saw. Burrows, droppings, rats running in daylight. Specifics help.

• Vacant lots and brush next door
• Back stoops over open dirt
• Retaining walls on terraced yards
• Overgrown city steps and paths

Stone foundations that sit on the sidewalk

A lot of Polish Hill houses sit right on the sidewalk out front and drop down to the yard in back. The foundations are usually stone, and the back wall is often half exposed on the downhill side. Where the wood framing sits on the stone is the most common way in for mice, and mouse removal usually starts there.

Winter's hard on these houses. Freeze and thaw opens cracks in the mortar and the front steps. Snow piles along the foundation and keeps the walls wet. Mice that spent the summer in the brush on the slopes come looking for those cracks as soon as it gets cold. The tech usually starts with mortar and sill work and a check of the stone basement and its floor drain. It takes more work in a house this old, but it can be sealed.

Lots here are narrow and many have no driveway. Tell us how the tech gets to your door. Bloomfield up the ridge and Lawrenceville down by the river see a lot of the same.

Around Polish Hill: Brereton Street · Dobson Street · Herron Avenue · Immaculate Heart of Mary Church · Strip District edge · Polish Hill city steps (ZIP 15219)

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