Long Beach Pest Control:
Belmont Shore to Bixby Knolls, Same-Day Service

Call (562) 488-7455 for a free inspection and a written quote before any work starts.

Rats and Mice in Long Beach

Rodents are what we get called out for most in Long Beach, and the city hands them two completely different ways in.

Roof rats come in from above. Mature street trees through Bixby Knolls, Los Altos and California Heights put branches within reach of a roofline, and from the roof a rat needs only a small gap to reach an attic. That is why the usual first sign is something running overhead after dark rather than anything at floor level. Older bungalows with open eaves and unscreened attic vents are the easiest way in, and that is most of the housing stock inland of Broadway. Trimming the limbs that touch the roof is genuinely half the fix.

Norway rats come in from below. They work the alleys, the storm drains and the ground floor, and they show up where standing water and food waste sit together — the restaurant alleys downtown and behind Belmont Shore, and the older sewer laterals under pre-war houses. A cracked lateral beneath a raised foundation is a direct route into a crawlspace, and no amount of trapping upstairs will close it.

House mice need a far smaller gap than people expect, which is why they turn up in kitchens and garages in houses that look perfectly well sealed. In multi-unit buildings around Alamitos Beach and downtown they move between units through shared utility chases, so treating one unit on its own rarely holds.

What actually ends it

Trapping clears what is inside. It does not stop the next one, and in Long Beach there is always a next one. The part that lasts is exclusion — sealing the entry points, screening the vents, closing the gaps at utility penetrations and the roofline junctions. We do the inspection first, in the attic and the subfloor, because the entry point is almost never where the noise is.

If there is droppings evidence, chewed wiring or a smell in the attic, that also needs cleaning out and treating, not just sealing. Full detail is on our rodent control page.

Call (562) 488-7455 and we will get someone out to look.