West Palm Beach, FL Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Section 18-106, which applies to every building, structure or lot in the city whether vacant or occupied, requires owners to keep the premises in a clean and sanitary condition and, specifically, reasonably free from rodents, insects and vermin. Inside dwellings, the Housing Code splits that duty more finely. Section 18-101(5) makes the occupant of a single dwelling responsible for exterminating any insects, rodents or other pests on the premises, and makes an occupant in a multi-unit building responsible only if that occupant's own unit is the sole one infested; if the infestation was caused by the owner's failure to keep the building ratproof or reasonably insectproof, the occupant is relieved of that duty.

Section 18-102(4) puts extermination on the owner instead whenever infestation exists in a single unit due to the owner's failure to maintain the building ratproof and insectproof, whenever infestation exists in shared or public areas of a multi-unit building, or whenever two or more units are infested at once. Section 18-102(2) further requires an owner to free a dwelling of infestation before renting it out. The structural side of rodent control comes from § 18-103(a) and (b), which require every dwelling structure, including its foundation, exterior walls and roof, to be reasonably rodentproof and in good repair, and § 18-103(e), which extends that rodentproofing duty to every window, exterior door and basement hatchway.