Porterville, CA Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Section 306.12(B), part of Article 306's citywide Performance Standards, sets the City's basic rule against rodent and insect harborage: solid wastes have to be handled and stored so they don't create nuisances, health hazards, safety hazards or fire hazards, and so they can still be recycled. The operative rodent-control language is direct: there can be no outdoor accumulation of solid waste that is conducive to breeding rodents or insects unless that waste sits inside closed containers. Because Article 306's performance standards apply to every use and every zoning district in the city, this reaches residential yards, commercial trash areas and industrial storage yards alike, not just one property type.

The same article addresses adjoining nuisance conditions that often travel with a rodent problem: Section 306.08 requires parking lots and landscaped areas to stay free of refuse and accumulated debris, and Section 306.09 bars odors perceptible at the property line. Enforcement of Article 306 runs through the City's general code violation process, since the Development Ordinance does not carry its own separate penalty schedule for performance standards. That leaves Municipal Code Section 1-9, the citywide violations and enforcement provision, to govern: violating any code requirement is a misdemeanor unless prosecuted as an infraction, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, imprisonment of up to six months, or both, and every day a violation continues counts as a new, separate offense. Article 306 was adopted by Ordinance 1866 on November 19, 2019.