An Old Rail Embankment, Open Lots and Century-Old Homes: Englewood Pest Control

From Junction Grove to a 97,000-person crossroads

Englewood began in 1852 as Junction Grove, a cluster of homes where several rail lines met on swampy, oak-studded ground. It later took the name of Englewood, New Jersey, and joined Chicago with the Town of Lake in 1889. After the Great Fire, families looking for room and rail access built frame cottages and houses here, and by the early 1900s the intersection of 63rd and Halsted had become one of the busiest crossroads on the South Side, ringed by greystones and brick two-flats. The population peaked near 97,000 around 1960.

The decades since brought deep loss. By 2024 the community area had about 23,000 residents, and foreclosure and demolition had cleared so many parcels that Englewood and West Englewood together held roughly a fifth of the city's owned land in a 2014 count. Kennedy-King College opened at 63rd and Halsted in 2007, and the city has sold many lots to neighbors for a dollar each through its Large Lots program. For pest control, the result is a landscape of occupied century-old homes sitting beside open ground, empty buildings and a long abandoned railway, with cover for rats and wildlife on nearly every block.

The 1917 embankment and the rats that live in its slopes

In 1917 the Pennsylvania Railroad raised a solid earthen embankment between 58th and 59th Streets, running 1.75 miles from Hoyne Avenue to Lowe Avenue over 26 viaducts. Trains stopped using it decades ago, and its slopes grew into weedy, rarely disturbed strips of well-drained soil, which is exactly what Norway rats look for in a burrow site. Colonies dig into the sides of the berm and at the base of the viaduct walls, then follow fence bottoms and alley edges toward garbage carts, pet food and gardens on the blocks to the north and south.

Homes that back onto the embankment often see activity year after year, even when their own yards are spotless, because the colony lives on land the homeowner cannot treat. The answer is to make the private side as unappealing as possible: tamper-proof stations fixed along the back fence line and beside the garage, a mowed or graveled strip at the property line, intact cart lids and sealed garage bases. Burrow entrances are about the width of a fist, with packed dirt and smooth runways leading away from them.

The city plans to turn the top of the embankment into the Englewood Nature Trail, with its main entrance at 58th and Halsted, and has targeted 2026 for the start of construction. Clearing brush and regrading slopes will disturb existing burrows, which can push rats toward nearby garages for several weeks. Over the long run, a maintained trail with managed vegetation should offer less cover than an abandoned berm, but owners along the corridor are wise to seal their garages and foundations before heavy work begins.

Demolitions, vacant lots and displaced colonies

A vacant lot provides two of the three things a rat colony needs: soil to burrow in and cover from tall weeds, dumped furniture or old foundation rubble. The occupied house next door usually supplies the third, food within about a hundred feet. When a vacant building is demolished, the rats that lived in its basement or under its slab scatter to the closest shelter, and neighbors commonly notice a spike within a few weeks even though the city requires baiting before demolition.

If a building on your block is scheduled to come down, have your garage and foundation checked and sealed beforehand rather than after. Report overgrown or dumped-on city-owned lots through 311 so they are cut and cleaned, and keep a clear strip of short grass or gravel along your side of the fence so rats crossing from the lot are exposed. Large Lots owners who now hold the parcel beside their home can make a big difference simply by keeping it mowed and free of debris.

Gardens on reclaimed lots are a welcome change, and they can be kept from feeding rats. Use closed, rodent-resistant compost bins rather than open piles, harvest ripe produce promptly, and avoid stacking lumber or pallets along the fence. Raised beds should have hardware cloth on the bottom so rats cannot tunnel up into them. Fruiting plants such as tomatoes and squash draw rats in August, so pick daily during peak season.

Greystones, frame houses and two-flats on blocks with gaps

The surviving housing is old, and each type has a familiar set of openings. Greystones present a solid limestone face to the street, but their brick side and rear walls, wooden back porches and original windows are where mice get in. Frame houses from the late 1800s were built with balloon framing, leaving channels from basement to attic. Two-flats share a basement and back stairs, so problems travel between households. Newer infill homes are tighter but often sit right beside open lots.

• Greystone: rear porch connection, back windows, the seam between stone front and brick sides, and any addition
• Frame house: sill plates, siding gaps near grade, attic vents and crawlspaces under rear rooms
• Two-flat: shared basement walls, laundry room, pipe chases and back stairwells
• Infill home: garage door seals, dryer vents, window wells and the lot-line side of the foundation
• Every type: the side wall that faces a vacant lot, which takes the most pressure

Empty buildings as raccoon and opossum dens

Vacant houses with broken windows, open roof decks or missing soffits make ideal dens for raccoons and Virginia opossums. Once a family is established in an empty building, young raccoons disperse into the nearest occupied homes, usually by way of chimneys, attic vents and garage roofs. Striped skunks den under porches and sheds along lot edges and dig small holes in lawns while hunting beetle grubs. Activity peaks in spring, when females look for safe nursery sites, and again in late summer when the young strike out on their own.

Hamilton Park at 72nd Street, a 1904 Olmsted Brothers and Burnham design with murals by John Warner Norton in its fieldhouse, and the 60-acre Ogden Park on the Racine Avenue edge, whose original lagoon was filled in 1940, both hold mature trees that support gray and fox squirrels. Those squirrels chew into the eaves and attic vents of older homes nearby. Illinois rules restrict how wildlife can be trapped and released, so this is work for licensed specialists. If the source is a neighboring vacant building, report it to the city so it can be boarded.

Mice and German cockroaches indoors

Indoors, house mice are the year-round companion of every older building type here. They squeeze through gaps the width of a pencil at mortar joints, window frames and around gas lines, nest in insulation and stored boxes, and in balloon-frame houses climb straight to the attic. Droppings in kitchen drawers and gnawed food packaging are the usual first signs. Trapping clears the current population, while sealing with metal mesh and mortar is what keeps the next wave out.

German cockroaches are mainly a problem in two-flats and small apartment blocks, where they follow pipes from one kitchen to the next. Gel baits and growth regulators applied in every unit at the same time, along with fixing leaks under sinks and sealing pipe gaps, work far better than sprays, which tend to scatter roaches into neighboring apartments. Tenants should report sightings early, since a small population is much easier to clear.

Pigeons and house sparrows round out the indoor-outdoor list. Vacant buildings and the old viaduct structures along the embankment provide ledges and openings where pigeons roost, and their droppings collect on porch roofs and window sills of neighboring homes. Sparrows and starlings push into dryer vents, gutter gaps and soffit holes. A wildlife specialist can remove nests outside active breeding, clean the area and install vent guards or bird spikes.

An Englewood pest calendar

Open ground and the embankment make the seasons swing harder here than on fully built blocks. Tall summer weeds give rats extra cover, and city mowing or clearing in late summer suddenly sends them looking for new shelter. A wet spring makes the weeds taller and the colonies larger going into fall, while a hard freeze after a mild autumn drives mice and rats indoors almost overnight. Use the list below as a rough guide and watch the lots around you for the real signal.

• March to April: thawing soil reopens burrows along lots and the embankment slopes
• April to May: raccoon and squirrel births, with attic and chimney calls climbing
• June to August: ants and wasps outside, German cockroach surges in multi-unit buildings, centipedes after basement flooding
• Late summer: lot mowing and clearing scatter rats toward garages and foundations
• September to October: the main mouse and rat push into buildings, the most important time to seal
• November to February: quieter outdoors, a good window for attic exclusion and foundation repair

Protecting a home beside open ground

These steps target the specific pressure of living near vacant lots, empty buildings or the embankment. They will not replace professional treatment for an established colony, but they slow down how quickly a cleared home gets reinfested. The goal is to make your parcel less inviting than the open land around it, so animals crossing at night keep moving instead of stopping at your fence.

• Report dumping and overgrown city-owned lots through 311
• Keep a strip of short grass or gravel along any fence that faces open ground
• Use only city carts with lids that close completely
• Feed pets indoors and pick up fallen fruit and birdseed
• Fit a new sweep on the garage door and patch the crumbling edge of the slab
• Close foundation and pipe gaps with copper mesh, mortar or metal flashing
• Cap chimneys and screen attic vents if an empty building stands nearby
• Ask for an inspection before a demolition or trail construction starts near you

How providers handle a call here

Expect the first visit to start outside, along the property line that faces the lot, the embankment or the alley. The technician looks for burrows at fence lines and under the garage, checks the foundation and rear porch, and anchors locked bait stations out of reach of kids and dogs. Inside, the basement gets the closest look, and in two-flats the provider will want access to both units and the shared space.

Wildlife in an attic is handled by specialists with one-way doors or live traps, followed by sealing. Rodent work almost always includes at least one follow-up, because pressure from open ground is steady. Ask what exclusion work is included in the quote, since sealing the house is what keeps results from fading. Same-day appointments are often possible. Before the visit, write down where you have seen droppings, burrows or animals and what borders each side of the lot, because that short history helps the technician decide where to put stations and which walls to seal first. Photos of tracks in snow or mud are useful too.