Chapel Hill, NC Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Article VIII of the Housing Code sets the town's minimum standard for keeping rodents out of dwellings. Section 9-127 requires every basement or cellar window used or intended for ventilation, and every other basement opening that could let rodents in, to have screens installed or another approved device that effectively blocks their entrance. Section 9-128 then assigns who pays to exterminate an infestation once it happens: the occupant of a single dwelling unit is responsible for extermination in that unit, and in a building with more than one unit, each occupant is responsible only when their own unit alone is infested.

Responsibility shifts to the owner in two situations: whenever infestation is caused by the owner's failure to keep the dwelling rodent-proof or reasonably insect-proof, and whenever infestation exists in two or more units, or in the shared or public parts of a multi-unit dwelling, since a shared infestation is beyond any single tenant's control. Related sections in the same article, §§ 9-126, 9-129, and 9-130, require insect screens on doors and windows and require occupants to store rubbish and garbage in approved containers, since improperly stored organic waste is itself a rodent food source.

Enforcement runs through the town's building inspector under §§ 9-15 through 9-17, the same officer who inspects and investigates dwelling conditions across the rest of the Housing Code.