Bethel, CT Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Chapter 63, Housing Standards, Rental Unit, adopted by the Board of Selectmen on September 11, 1978, applies specifically to Bethel's rental dwellings; § 63-1B construes every reference to a dwelling, dwelling unit, or premises in the chapter as preceded by the word 'rental,' so these extermination duties do not reach an owner-occupied home outside the rental market. Section 63-3H splits pest-control responsibility by situation. An occupant of a single-family rental unit must handle extermination of insects, rodents, or other pests on the premises. In a multi-unit rental where only one unit is infested, that unit's occupant bears the responsibility.

But the duty shifts to the owner whenever the infestation was caused by the owner's failure to keep the dwelling ratproof or reasonably insectproof, and it shifts to the owner outright whenever an infestation reaches two or more units or the shared or public areas of the building. Section 63-3J separately bars any owner or occupant from accumulating rubbish, boxes, lumber, scrap metal, or other material in a way that could provide a rodent harborage or rodent food source in or around the dwelling. Chapter 63's definitions describe INFESTATION as the presence in large numbers of insects, rodents, or other pests within or around a dwelling, and describe EXTERMINATION as their control, destruction, and elimination by removing or sealing off harborages and food sources, or by poisoning, spraying, fumigating, or trapping.

Section 63-3G separately makes the owner responsible for providing and hanging screens and storm doors and windows required elsewhere in the chapter, which supports the ratproofing duty in § 63-3H.