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

085, added by Ordinance No. 61-6011 on March 24, 2026, targets a common rodent-harborage source: household furniture left outside. No person may place, or allow to remain, exposed to the elements, whether outdoors or on an unenclosed porch or similar area, any chair, sofa, bed, table or similar furniture not designed for outdoor use if it is thereby readily susceptible to deterioration or provides a harborage for rodents. The rule exempts furniture that is unused and set out as refuse awaiting collection, so a couch at the curb on trash day is not a violation, but the same couch left rotting on a porch or in a yard is.

That furniture-specific rule sits alongside Wausau's broader health nuisance list. 030(c) separately declares a public health nuisance the presence of decayed animal or vegetable matter, trash, rubbish, rotting lumber, bedding, packing material, scrap metal, and any material in which vermin such as flies, mosquitoes, insects, rats or mice may breed. Together the two sections give the City two tools against the same underlying problem: harborage conditions that let rodents establish themselves on residential or commercial property. Either provision can support a nuisance abatement order, and the Wausau Inspection & Zoning Department has authority to investigate and cite offending properties.