Edgewater and Andersonville: Tower Stacks, Apartment Hotels and Frame Cottages

Philadelphia street names and a split along the L

Developer John Lewis Cochran laid out his first Edgewater subdivision in 1885 and named the streets after stations on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line outside Philadelphia: Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Thorndale, Rosemont and Wayne. The land was part of Lake View Township, which Chicago annexed in 1889, and for half a century it was counted as the northern half of Uptown. In 1980 the city recognized it as community area 77, the only area added to the map since the originals were drawn. Swedish families had already been building a few blocks west for decades, pushed beyond the city limits after the 1871 fire banned new wood construction inside them, and that settlement became Andersonville.

The elevated tracks on Broadway now divide two housing stocks. To the east, Sheridan Road mansions gave way first to 1920s apartment hotels and then, from the late 1950s into the early 1970s, to a nearly unbroken wall of towers. To the west, the Lakewood Balmoral and Edgewater Glen districts and the Andersonville side streets keep their Queen Annes, Foursquares, frame cottages and brick flats. That divide is the single most useful fact about pest control here. A call east of Broadway usually means a multi-unit building with shared risers and a property manager. A call west of it looks more like a house inspection on a century-old foundation.

German cockroaches in the Sheridan Road tiers

The most persistent indoor problem in Edgewater is the German cockroach, and the towers between Sheridan Road and the lake are where it concentrates. Each building works like a vertical street. Kitchens and baths line up floor over floor along plumbing chases, and the gaps where supply and drain pipes pass through concrete slabs and drywall give roaches sheltered passage from one unit to the next. Trash chutes, chute rooms on every floor and the compactor room at the base add food, warmth and moisture. German cockroaches cannot survive a Chicago winter outdoors, so every tower infestation is an indoor population that was carried in on a box or a used appliance, or walked over from a neighbor.

That is why a single unit is never really the unit. When one resident sets off a fogger, the roaches tend to scatter sideways and up the riser, and the apartment next door inherits the problem. Licensed technicians who work these buildings prefer gel baits placed in hinge gaps, behind refrigerators and inside cabinet voids, paired with an insect growth regulator that stops nymphs from maturing. The stronger programs inspect the whole tier, meaning every unit that shares a kitchen line from the lowest affected floor to a floor or two above it, and then seal the pipe penetrations with escutcheon plates or sealant.

Early signs worth reporting to management include pepper-like droppings along the top edge of cabinet doors, small brown egg cases near the refrigerator motor and live roaches in daylight, which usually means the hiding spots are full. A musty, oily odor in cabinets points to a heavy population. Moves inside the same building are a common way a clean floor gets reinfested, so an inspection after any move is cheap insurance.

Mice in the Bryn Mawr apartment hotels and old service shafts

The Bryn Mawr Historic District runs along Bryn Mawr Avenue between Broadway and Sheridan, anchored by the Bryn Mawr and Belle Shore apartment hotels, which went up across the street from each other in 1928 and 1929. A few blocks north, the pink Edgewater Beach Apartments of 1928 outlived the resort hotel they were built beside; the Edgewater Beach Hotel, opened in 1916, was razed in 1970. These buildings were designed around small efficiency units with compact kitchenettes, and most have been combined, replumbed and rewired more than once since.

Every layer of renovation leaves voids behind. Abandoned chases, dropped corridor ceilings, sealed-off dumbwaiters and old service shafts can connect apartments that look separate on a floor plan, and house mice use them to travel between floors. Basement laundry rooms and storage cages packed with cardboard give mice a warm nesting base near the boiler. Effective control starts below grade with sealing at utility entries and door bottoms, locked bait or trap stations along basement walls and a check of the top-floor corridor, then moves to units where residents report droppings. Pigeons are a secondary issue on these older facades, nesting on deep window ledges and air conditioner brackets, and deterrents on landmark-quality terra cotta need fasteners set in mortar, not ornament.

Old trees, old attics: wildlife west of Broadway

The parkway canopy in Lakewood Balmoral, Edgewater Glen and Andersonville is some of the oldest on the North Side, and it puts gray and fox squirrels on rooflines all year. They chew through rotted fascia, the joints where porch roofs meet the main wall and the window screen that too many owners use on gable vents. A frame cottage's shallow attic or the space above a two-flat's top unit makes a dry nest, and squirrels raise litters there in early spring and again in late summer. Chewed wiring in attics with mixed generations of electrical work is a real fire risk, so a squirrel problem is worth fixing promptly.

Rosehill Cemetery, about 350 acres and the largest in Chicago, sits just across Ravenswood Avenue and feeds wildlife into the western blocks. Raccoons, opossums and striped skunks use it as daytime cover, then visit garages, porches and compost bins at night. Big brown bats occasionally find gaps in Queen Anne attics in late spring. Andersonville's strong gardening culture adds a rat angle: vegetable beds, fruit trees, bird feeders and open compost in deep backyards feed Norway rats that burrow under garage slabs and raised beds along the alleys. Enclosed compost bins and quick cleanup of fallen fruit and spilled seed do more than any bait station on these lots.

A building-by-building guide from the lake to Ravenswood

High-rise condos and rentals along Sheridan Road need tier-based roach work, chute room discipline and, on lower floors, attention to mice entering through garage levels and loading doors. Balconies attract pigeons and collect the cardboard and planters spiders love. Owners control very little of the structure, so the association's contract and its willingness to treat a whole stack matter more than anything an individual unit does.

Vintage apartment hotels and 1920s courtyard buildings sit between the two worlds. They have the shared basements and stacked kitchenettes of a tower but the old masonry, wood back stairs and ornamental ledges of a walk-up. Mice and roaches lead, with pigeons on the facade. Many of these buildings were converted to condos, so the board, not a single landlord, decides whether the basement gets sealed and whether every unit on a line is treated. Residents who bring a written log of sightings, with dates and unit numbers, give that board the evidence it needs to act building-wide.

West of Broadway, brick two-flats and three-flats share basements and back porches, so mice and roaches move between households, and flat roofs with parapets sometimes host pigeons. Frame cottages and Victorians bring the house-scale list instead: squirrels and bats in the attic, mice through fieldstone or early brick foundations, carpenter ants in damp porch wood and skunks or opossums under stoops. Damp basements under all of these older homes keep house centipedes and silverfish busy, which is a moisture problem first and an insect problem second.

A lakefront calendar that runs on two clocks

Wind off the lake keeps the east side cooler in spring and milder in early winter than neighborhoods a few miles inland, which can shift outdoor pest timing by a week or two compared with the Northwest Side. The towers run on their own climate, so roaches in a heated high-rise breed in every month while yard pests west of Broadway follow the seasons. The pattern local providers describe goes roughly like this, with the house-side items concentrated west of the tracks. Read the months as rough markers; a warm March or a wet June moves everything, and towers with aging ventilation can see roach spikes any time a heat wave hits the upper floors.

• March and April: squirrels bear first litters in attics; mice already indoors become more visible as breeding picks up.
• May and June: pavement and odorous house ants trail into garden units; pigeons nest on tower balconies; skunks den under porches.
• June and July: bat pups are born, so bat exclusion on older attics waits until the young can fly, usually from about August.
• July and August: roach complaints peak in towers as heat and humidity rise in kitchens and chute rooms; rats are busiest in garden alleys.
• October and November: mice move into basements and first-floor units; centipedes and spiders show up in garden apartments.
• Winter: the best time to repair fascia, cap chimneys and get associations to schedule whole-tier roach inspections.

Prevention list sorted from tower to cottage

One checklist cannot cover a 30-story tower and a Shingle Style house with a wraparound porch, so the habits below run loosely from the lake westward. Pick the items that match your building, and share the high-rise items with your association or landlord, since several only work when every unit on a stack follows them. House owners will get the most from the roofline and garden items, which are also the cheapest to do in late fall, after leaves drop and before squirrels pick winter nest sites. Renters in two-flats can handle the porch and storage steps on their own and pass the structural ones to the owner.

• Report roaches to management right away so every unit on the same kitchen tier can be inspected together.
• Seal gaps around sink and toilet supply lines with escutcheon plates or sealant.
• Keep chute doors closed and never leave bags on the chute room floor.
• Clear balcony clutter and stored cardboard that shelters pigeons and spiders.
• Ask that basement storage cages in vintage buildings be cleaned of cardboard and fabric before winter.
• Keep branches well back from the roof and replace rotted fascia before fall.
• Use heavy metal mesh, not window screen, on gable and attic vents.
• Use enclosed compost bins, pick up fallen fruit and clean spilled birdseed in Andersonville gardens.

Working through a condo board, a manager or a historic district

In the towers, most work runs through an association or property manager. Many Sheridan Road buildings already have a contract that covers common areas, and a technician may need management's permission and an escort to enter mechanical rooms, compactor rooms or neighboring units. Condo owners can still bring in their own licensed exterminator for a unit, but results are far better when the board agrees to treat every unit on the affected kitchen or bath line on the same day, with notices and prep sheets sent ahead.

West of Broadway, the checklist is different: attic access, the condition of soffits and whether repairs touch historic exterior materials. National Register listing in Lakewood Balmoral and Edgewater Glen does not block pest work, but owners usually want sealing that blends with original siding and trim, and visible changes on any designated city landmark may need review. Wildlife specialists start with a full exterior inspection from grade to roof, check for young before sealing, follow Illinois rules on handling animals and schedule bat work around the summer maternity season. Same-day visits are often available for urgent problems.