Prairie Edges, Cemetery Lawns and the Rodents They Send Into Dunning Homes

A poor farm, a potter's field and the open ground they left

In 1851 Cook County bought about 160 acres of prairie here for a poorhouse and insane asylum, placed far from the city on purpose. David Dunning and his son bought 120 acres to the south in 1865, and an 1882 depot on the institution's rail spur took the family name. The area was annexed to Chicago with the rest of Jefferson Township in 1889. The state took over the property in 1912 as Chicago State Hospital, which closed in 1970 and merged into the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center. For decades the county buried the poor and the institutionalized nearby, roughly 38,000 people from the 1850s to the 1920s.

That burial ground was rediscovered during development near Irving Park Road and Narragansett in 1989 and is now honored by Read Dunning Memorial Park, dedicated in 2002. Mount Olive Cemetery, founded in 1886, and neighboring cemeteries toward Addison add more quiet acreage. The residential blocks that grew up around these grounds, many after 1920 and many more after World War II, got wider lots than the two-flat neighborhoods to the east. Today about 41,000 people live in 3.75 square miles, and their lawns, mature trees and green edges are good for families and equally good for field rodents, skunks, moles and opossums.

Deer mice and house mice: two species, two levels of caution

Most Chicago neighborhoods deal almost entirely with the house mouse, the uniform gray-brown species that lives alongside people. Dunning sees that one too, but its open ground also supports deer mice, which nest in grassy fields, fence lines and brush. You can tell them apart quickly: a deer mouse has a crisp white belly and white feet and a tail sharply darker on top than underneath. Deer mice move into garages, sheds and basements when fields cool in October, and they often stash seeds in drawers, boots and stored furniture.

The difference matters because deer mice are the main North American carrier of hantavirus, which spreads through dust from dried droppings and nesting material. Cleanup should be done wet. Air the space out first, spray droppings and nests with a disinfectant or a bleach solution, let it soak, then wipe up with gloves and bag everything. Never sweep or vacuum deer mouse debris dry. If a shed or garage has a heavy accumulation, many owners prefer to have a professional handle the cleanup along with the trapping.

In ranch homes, mice usually enter at the garage and reach the house through the door to the kitchen or utility room, or through the joint where the garage slab meets the foundation. In bungalows and Tudors, basement window wells, worn mortar and unsealed utility lines are the usual routes. Tightening that one garage-to-house connection, with a door sweep, weatherstripping and a sealed slab joint, solves a large share of the problem in postwar houses.

Twenty acres of prairie, and the rodents living around it

The Dunning Read Natural Area, at 4050 North Oak Park Avenue, covers about 20 acres of prairie, wetland and woodland with roughly a mile of mulch trails. The land was original prairie, then drained and farmed for many years until farming stopped after the Chicago-Read center opened in 1970. The state protected it as the Dunning Read Conservation Area in 2005, restoration of prairie, wetland and savanna has continued since, and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources granted the park district a conservation easement in 2022. It is now popular for birding.

For nearby homeowners, a restored prairie means a healthy population of the small animals prairies support: deer mice, voles, eastern moles in the moist edges, garter snakes and the hawks and owls that hunt them. None of that is a problem in itself, and native snakes here are harmless and protected. It does mean houses closest to the natural area, the memorial park and the cemeteries should expect steady rodent pressure each fall and should treat garage sealing and shed cleanup as routine maintenance rather than a one-time project.

Norway rats are a smaller part of the picture here than in the dense neighborhoods to the east, but they still turn up along the busier alleys near Irving Park Road and Belmont Avenue and beside older detached garages with cracked slabs. They are easy to confuse with large voles or chipmunks working the same yards, which is one reason a professional identification matters before baiting. Rat burrows tend to sit against a structure with a smooth, packed entrance and a runway along the fence, while voles leave surface trails in the grass. Locked stations, garage sealing and closed cart lids handle most rat cases.

Reading lawn damage: skunk, raccoon or mole?

Lawn damage is the most common reason Dunning owners call about animals, and the culprit is not always obvious. Striped skunks, raccoons and eastern moles all go after beetle grubs and earthworms, but they leave different marks, and the right response depends on which one it is. Cemetery lawns and park turf nearby give all three a steady supply of animals moving outward into private yards.

Skunks deserve particular attention because they also den. One that has been foraging in your lawn in August may move under the front stoop or a shed by October. Specialists confirm the den, use a one-way door or a soft-plug test to be sure the animal has left, then trench in galvanized mesh in an L shape, at least a foot down and a foot out. Virginia opossums, common around the cemeteries, rarely dig their own dens but move into openings under decks and sheds that already exist; the same barriers keep them out.

• Small cone-shaped holes about fist size scattered across the lawn overnight: usually skunks.
• Sod rolled back in strips like carpet: usually raccoons.
• Raised, winding ridges and volcano-shaped mounds with no open hole: eastern moles.
• Clean round holes about two inches wide with no mound: often a vole, chipmunk or rat, so have it checked.
• Musky odor near the stoop at dawn and fresh soil at the slab edge: a skunk den is likely.

Tudor gables, bungalow basements and postwar ranches

Each building era here fails in its own way. Tudor cottages have steep roofs with multiple valleys, wood-trimmed gables and decorative chimneys, giving squirrels and occasionally bats many small openings at the roofline. Bungalows share the masonry and basement window problems found across the Northwest Side, and many in the Schorsch Village area sit within a National Register bungalow district. Postwar ranches and raised ranches are lower, usually with attached or close-set garages, wide concrete stoops and front porches built on fill that a skunk or opossum can dig under in a single night.

Knowing which type you own tells a provider where to look first. A Tudor inspection starts with a ladder at the gables and chimney. A bungalow inspection starts in the basement with window frames and pipe entries. A ranch inspection starts at the garage, the stoop and the patio joint. Larger lots also carry sheds, wood piles and fences that need checking, because in Dunning the structure an animal moves into first is often not the house.

Squirrels are the main roof problem on the Tudors. Gray and fox squirrels reach the steep slopes from parkway oaks and maples, then chew where a valley flashing has lifted, where gable trim has softened or where a decorative chimney meets the roof. The first scratching usually comes at dawn in February or March, with a second round in late summer. A specialist seals secondary gaps, sets a one-way door on the main hole and returns to close it with heavy steel mesh. Because these roofs are steep, this is work better left to someone with proper ladders and roof anchors.

Seasons on a Dunning block

The open ground nearby means outdoor animals set much of the calendar here, while indoor pests follow the furnace. A wet spring brings mole ridges and carpenter ants earlier, a dry August with stressed turf can push skunks to dig harder, and a sudden October cold snap sends deer mice from fence lines into garages within days. Expect each stage to shift by a few weeks from year to year.

• February and March: skunk mating season, with more night travel and odor complaints; raccoons look for den sites in garages.
• April and May: mole ridges appear in moist lawns; carpenter ants trail in from damp porches and wood piles.
• June: young skunks and raccoons in dens under decks and stoops, so exclusion waits until they are mobile.
• Late August and September: grub feeding peaks, along with lawn digging.
• October and November: deer mice and house mice move into garages, sheds and basements; moles surge again in damp weather.
• Winter: mice indoors and occasional squirrel activity in Tudor attics during warm spells.

Prevention suited to larger lots and postwar homes

Bigger yards give animals more places to settle, but they also give you more room to stop a problem before it reaches the house. The most important work happens where the yard meets a structure: stoops, decks, sheds, garage slabs and the roofline of a steep Tudor. Most of these steps cost little beyond materials and a weekend, and they reduce the need for repeated trapping later.

• Skirt decks, stoops and sheds with galvanized hardware cloth trenched in an L shape, 12 inches down and 12 out.
• Stack firewood well away from the house and off the ground.
• Treat lawns for grubs in the right season to remove food for skunks, raccoons and moles.
• Seal the joint where the garage slab meets the foundation and weatherstrip the garage-to-house door.
• Store birdseed, grass seed and pet food in metal containers.
• Cap chimneys and screen roof vents on steep-gabled Tudors.
• Clean shed and garage droppings wet, with disinfectant, never by dry sweeping.

What a visit looks like near the cemeteries and campus grounds

Many visits here start outside. A specialist walks the whole lot, checking under stoops, decks and sheds for fresh soil, hair and tracks, then circles the foundation for entry points. If an animal is denning, expect an explanation of the exclusion plan and how long it will take; one-way doors often stay up several days. Relocating wildlife is regulated in Illinois, and nuisance animal removal is normally done by a permitted wildlife control operator, so ask about the permit when you book.

Indoor mouse and insect work follows a familiar pattern: inspection, targeted traps or locked stations, sealing and a follow-up. Owners next to the cemeteries, the memorial park and the natural area should expect animal pressure to continue, because those protected green spaces will always produce new mice, skunks and opossums. The goal is a house and yard that are hard to get into, not an empty landscape. A skunk or raccoon shut inside a garage is an urgent call, and providers can often come the same day.