Framingham, MA Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Section 312-11 falls inside Chapter 312, Lodging Houses, and applies specifically to licensees operating rooming and boarding houses in the City. It requires the licensee and their agent to comply with the City's Regulations Governing the Handling, Storage, Collection and Disposal of Waste, plus any other applicable state or local waste law. Beyond the rodent-proof receptacle rule in Subsection A, the section requires the licensee to provide enough receptacles to hold all waste that accumulates before collection, and to locate those containers where odors will not reach any dwelling, preferably at the rear of the building.

Licensees must also tell every lodger the rules for storing, collecting, and disposing of waste, may not set waste out for collection before 6:00 a.m. on the scheduled day, and must remove all empty containers from the collection area by midnight of the collection day. The chapter's enforcement section, § 312-27, puts the Board of License Commissioners and any Framingham police officer in charge of enforcing every requirement in Chapter 312, including this waste rule. A violation carries a $300 fine, and each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense, so an unaddressed rodent-attracting waste problem can generate repeated fines quickly.

The Board may instead use the noncriminal disposition procedure under MGL c. 40, § 21D, and Chapter 1, Article I of the General Ordinances, which still carries the same $300 per-offense penalty.