Wayne County, NC Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Sec. 14-158 sets Wayne County's minimum pest-control standards for every dwelling used as a human habitation. Subsection (a) requires screens on every door opening directly to outdoor space and on every window or ventilation opening, protecting against mosquitoes, flies and other insects; a dwelling with central heating and air conditioning is exempted from the screening requirement. Subsection (b) assigns extermination duty by fault and by unit count: an occupant of a single-unit dwelling is responsible for exterminating insects, rodents or other pests within it, and an occupant of one unit in a multi-unit dwelling is responsible only when that unit alone is infested.

The duty shifts to the owner in two situations: whenever infestation is caused by the owner's failure to keep the dwelling in a reasonably rodent- and insect-proof condition, and whenever infestation exists in two or more units of the same dwelling or in the dwelling's shared or public areas, in which case the owner bears the extermination responsibility regardless of fault. Subsection (c) separately requires every dwelling unit in a multiple-unit facility to be supplied with an approved garbage-disposal facility, which ties into the rodent standard because uncontrolled garbage is the county's primary attractant concern.

Sec. 14-153 folds this rodent and infestation standard into the general fitness requirement: a dwelling failing Sec. 14-158 cannot lawfully be owner-occupied or let to a tenant.