Roanoke, VA Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Article III of Chapter 15 places the burden of rodent control squarely on property owners and managers. Section 15-43 requires anyone owning or controlling accumulations of rubbish, boxes, lumber, scrap metal, or car bodies that create rat harborage to remove the materials or store them so the harborage is eliminated, with lumber and boxes neatly piled at least one foot above the ground; if the materials' owner can't be found after a reasonable search, the property's owner or manager becomes responsible for the cleanup instead.

Section 15-44 separately bars letting materials that could serve as rat food accumulate anywhere rats can reach them, requiring such waste to sit in ratproof containers built of concrete or metal with tight-fitting openings. Section 15-45 requires the owner or manager to exterminate rats whenever holes, burrows, or other infestation signs appear, and within ten days after extermination to fill all rat holes and burrows with earth, ashes, or similar material. Section 15-46 requires owners and managers to keep buildings reasonably ratproof, replace broken basement windows, and cover basement window openings with hardware cloth or comparable material, and extends the same duty to sheds, barns, coops, and similar outbuildings, which must be ratproofed, raised off the ground, or razed if they harbor rats.

The director of health enforces this article and, under section 15-42, may enter vacant, abandoned, or condemned property during an emergency affecting public health to abate a rat harborage directly, with the city's abatement cost becoming a lien on the property under Charter section 51.