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

56, Pest Control, covering the city of Wauwatosa in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, puts the burden of rodent control squarely on property owners, managers and tenants. 020 requires anyone owning or controlling rubbish, boxes, lumber, scrap metal or car bodies that create 'rat harborage' to remove the materials or store them so the harborage is eliminated; lumber and boxes must be neatly piled and raised at least one foot off the ground. If the owner of the materials cannot be found after a reasonable search, the owner or manager of the premises where the materials sit becomes responsible for disposal or proper piling.

030 bars leaving food accessible to rats: waste that could feed rats must go into rat-proof containers, and bird feed must sit on raised platforms or otherwise stay out of rats' reach. 040 gives owners and managers a duty to exterminate rats once holes, burrows or other infestation signs appear, and requires all rat holes and burrows to be filled with earth or ashes within ten days of extermination. 050 requires buildings to be kept reasonably rat-proof, with broken basement windows replaced and window openings covered with hardware cloth, and extends the same duty to sheds, barns and coops, which the health officer can order razed if rat-proofing will not work.

060 authorizes the health officer or a health inspector to investigate reported rat harborages and to check for potential harborage and feeding sites during routine food inspections. 070 records that the reference to insects was deleted to conform to Wis. 701(3), which bars a political subdivision from regulating pesticide use, so the chapter's extermination duty today runs to rodents and other pests rather than insects specifically.