Rothschild, WI Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Village Code § 407-7, part of the Nuisances chapter, sets out a detailed rat control regime. It requires anyone owning or controlling materials like rubbish, boxes, lumber, scrap metal, or car bodies that provide rat harborage to remove the materials or store them so as to eliminate the harborage, with lumber and boxes neatly piled at least a foot off the ground. No person may place or allow food-like waste to accumulate where rats can reach it; such waste has to go in ratproof containers, defined as concrete or metal containers with tight-fitting openings, and bird feed must sit on raised platforms rats cannot reach.

Where rat holes or burrows are found, the property owner or manager must exterminate the infestation, then fill all holes and burrows with earth, ashes, or suitable material within 10 days of the extermination. Owners and managers also have an affirmative duty to ratproof buildings, meaning they must replace broken basement windows and cover window openings with hardware cloth, defined as wire screening thick and tightly spaced enough to keep rats and mice out. Sheds, barns, coops, and similar outbuildings must have rat harborages eliminated by ratproofing or raising the structure off the ground, or the structure must be razed.

Violations of this and the rest of Chapter 407 are subject to the Village's general penalty under § 1-2: a $10 to $100 fine for a first offense, rising to $50 to $500 for a repeat violation within a year, plus prosecution costs.