Rodent Control in Shadyside

Shadyside is big Victorians, a lot of them split into apartments, plus brick apartment buildings and old carriage houses on the back alleys. Walnut Street and Ellsworth Avenue bring the shops, cafes and restaurants. UPMC Shadyside sits on the edge.

Converted houses are tough for rodent work. One house, four units, a shared basement and an attic nobody goes into. Mice can live up there for a long time before anyone notices.

Four units, one attic nobody checks

In a multi-unit house, the basement and attic tie every unit together. Mice travel along pipes and wires between floors, through gaps around old radiators and steam pipes, and in at the roofline. Mice in a third-floor unit or a shared attic are the most common Shadyside call. Treating one apartment rarely works. Owners and managers do better treating the whole building at once, the way apartment service is set up.

If you rent a unit, mice are usually the landlord's job. You can still call to understand your options and pass that along. When the mess up top is old, attic cleanup usually follows the trapping. Managers: tell your tenants who to call when they see droppings. The sooner you hear about it, the smaller the job.

• Pipe chases between floors
• Shared basements and storage rooms
• Old radiator and steam pipe openings
• Carriage houses and alley garages

Porches, carriage houses and Walnut Street cans

Shadyside is gentler ground than most of Pittsburgh, with long level streets and big trees. The houses make up for it. Stone foundations, wide wood porches, steep roofs and decorative trim mean a lot of seams, and mature trees hang branches right over a lot of roofs. Porches built over open ground leave a sheltered spot for rats to dig, and lattice skirting doesn't stop them. Hardware cloth buried along the base of the porch does, and that's part of proofing the porch and foundation.

The carriage houses on the back alleys are another building to deal with. Old wood doors, cracked or dirt floors, stored stuff. Mice use them as a stop on the way to the main house. Tell us about yours so it gets checked. If the carriage house has been turned into an apartment, it's basically a second house and needs its own look.

Restaurants on Walnut and Ellsworth have alley dumpsters, and apartment buildings put out a lot of trash. A converted house often shares one set of cans, so a missing lid can go unnoticed for weeks. Enough lidded cans for every unit, and someone checking after pickup, goes a long way. Our trash tips cover the city rules. Squirrel Hill next door sees the same fall mice.

Around Shadyside: Walnut Street · Ellsworth Avenue · Highland Avenue · UPMC Shadyside · Shady Avenue · Aiken Avenue (ZIP 15232)

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