Rodent Control in Ahwatukee Foothills

Ahwatukee gets both kinds of rat. The village sits between South Mountain Park and Preserve and the I-10, and it feels like its own town since the mountain cuts it off from the rest of Phoenix. Houses on the mountain side get pack rats building nests in the desert landscaping. Houses deeper in, with citrus and palms, get roof rats.

Most homes here went up in the 1980s and 1990s: concrete tile roofs, stucco, a block wall around every yard. The Loop 202 now runs along the south and west edges near Pecos Rd. Tell us when you call whether your house backs up to the preserve. It changes what the tech looks for first.

Pack rats along the preserve

Up against the preserve, around Foothills Club West and Mountain Park Ranch, yards run into rocky desert and washes. That's pack rat country. They build middens in prickly pear and cholla, under sheds and behind AC units, and some move into a car that sits in the driveway for a couple of weeks. Keep cactus and woodpiles off the house, and pop the hood on anything that doesn't get driven much. Chewed wiring is a job for your mechanic, but the nest is a job for the tech.

They'll trap near the nest and clear it safely, which is covered under pack rat nest removal. Not sure it's a pack rat? The tail and nest test settles it fast. Desert-edge homes up in north Phoenix by Desert Ridge deal with the same thing.

Roof rats around Lakewood and the golf courses

Away from the mountain, the older parts of Ahwatukee near Lakewood and along Chandler Blvd. and Ray Rd. have bigger trees, golf course edges and small lakes. That's roof rat habitat. They get onto tile roofs from overhanging branches and go in at the eave gaps. These attics are brutal in summer, so rats hang around the garage and wall voids too. A citrus tree planted when the house was new is thirty-plus years old now, and plenty of them hang right over the roof.

Most of these homes end up needing roof rat trapping plus eave gap and garage seal work, and some get mice in the garage every summer looking for water. Across the I-10, Tempe sees more roof rats than pack rats.

• Keep cactus and woodpiles away from the house
• Check under the hood of cars that sit for a while
• Seal tile eave gaps and garage door seals

Around Ahwatukee Foothills: South Mountain Park and Preserve · Foothills Club West · Mountain Park Ranch · Lakewood · Chandler Blvd. and Ray Rd. · Pecos Rd. (ZIP 85044, 85045, 85048)

Also serving Arcadia, North Central & Sunnyslope, Encanto & Willo, Maryvale, Paradise Valley Village & Desert Ridge, Scottsdale, Tempe, Glendale, Mesa.