Kenwood's Big Attics, Old Flues and the Animals That Find Them

Kennicott's depot, a township annexed in 1889 and two halves of one neighborhood

The name traces to Dr. John A. Kennicott, who built a house near the Illinois Central tracks around 48th Street in the 1850s and named it after his family's ancestral land in Scotland. The railroad's depot took the same name, and the label spread across the district. Kenwood sat inside Hyde Park Township until Chicago annexed the township in 1889, by which time wealthy families were building big houses on deep lots south of 47th Street. Those blocks, bounded roughly by 47th, 51st, Blackstone and Drexel, became the city's Kenwood District landmark in June 1979, and much of the same ground falls inside the National Register's Hyde Park-Kenwood Historic District.

North of 47th Street the lots shrank. Graystones, brick rowhouses and two-flats filled the blocks for middle-income households, and many were later split into apartments. The population peaked above 41,000 in 1960 and fell to under 18,000 by 2010, with North Kenwood absorbing much of the vacancy and later the rebuilding. That split still shapes the pest map. Big-house Kenwood leans toward wildlife in roofs and wood-boring insects in porches. North Kenwood leans toward rodents, shared walls and the habits of denser housing. Squirrels, which ignore the 47th Street line entirely, work both halves.

Big brown bats in slate roofs, turrets and chimney chases

Bats are the call that sets Kenwood apart from most of the South Side. Big brown bats, and occasionally little brown bats, roost in buildings across Chicago, but a three-story Queen Anne or shingle-style house south of 47th Street is close to ideal. The attics are huge and warm, the rooflines carry turrets, dormers and several chimneys, and the trim has been patched many times in more than a century. Where slate meets copper flashing, or where a fascia board has pulled off masonry, a half-inch gap opens. That is all a big brown bat needs.

The first signs are usually small dark droppings piled below a gable, on a porch roof or on the attic floor, plus brown rub stains at an eave gap. Watching the house at dusk on a warm evening often settles the question, as bats drop from the opening one after another. Late summer brings the classic indoor encounter, when young bats begin flying and wander through gaps around attic doors, pull-down stairs and chimney chases into bedrooms and stairwells.

Bats are protected in Illinois, so killing or poisoning them is off the table and pointless anyway. The method is exclusion. A specialist maps every opening, seals the minor ones, fits one-way devices over the main exits and returns to close those once the colony has left. Timing matters: from about late May into early August, flightless pups are in the roost, and sealing then strands them inside. Guano removal and new insulation often follow, because large deposits hold odor and can carry fungal spores.

Any bat found in a living space where someone slept, or that had contact with a person or pet, should be contained if possible and reported to a doctor or public health officials rather than simply released, since bats are the main rabies carrier in Illinois. That rule surprises many owners, but it is the reason specialists ask detailed questions about where a bat was found and who was in the room before they start talking about exclusion.

Drexel Boulevard's canopy: squirrels, raccoons and carpenter ants

The trees along Drexel Boulevard and on the deep Kenwood lots include oaks, elms and maples that are older than many of the houses. Gray and fox squirrels live in them in large numbers and treat the rooflines as extensions of the canopy. They chew into soffit corners, dormer joints and wood cornices, then shred insulation for nests in March and again in late summer. In houses with old knob-and-tube circuits still in place, gnawed wiring is a real fire concern. One-way doors over the active hole, followed by metal-backed repairs and trimming limbs eight feet back from the roof, is the standard fix.

Raccoons travel the same canopy and the routes up from the lakefront, and a big house with four or five flues gives them choices. Females look for den sites in February and March, so chattering or thumping inside a chimney in early spring is a familiar Kenwood call. A stainless mesh cap on every flue, including the unused ones, prevents most of it.

Carpenter ants follow the trees as well. Colonies start in hollow limbs and stumps, then send satellite nests into damp wood on the house: porch columns, sleeping-porch framing, sills under failed gutters and the bottom course of wood siding. Big black ants on the kitchen floor in April, or little heaps of coarse sawdust under trim, mean the nest is close. A provider can trace and treat it, but the wet wood still needs a carpenter.

North Kenwood graystones and the Metra Electric embankment

Above 47th Street the problem shifts downward. Graystones and two-flats sit on limestone and brick foundations with soft lime mortar, filled-in coal chutes and a century of utility holes, and house mice move in through all of them each October. In a divided graystone the garden unit hears them first, then the kitchens above as mice follow plumbing chases upward. Rowhouse groups share party walls, so a neighbor's infestation can become yours without any gap on your side of the line.

The Metra Electric embankment along the eastern edge of the community area gives both mice and Norway rats a long, undisturbed corridor. Blocks close to the tracks, and the alleys that run toward them, see more rat burrows along fence lines and garage slabs than blocks farther west. German cockroaches are mostly a story of apartment conversions in North Kenwood and the larger complexes near the lake, where shared trash rooms and stacked kitchens let them spread.

Rebuilding has its own side effect. When a long-vacant graystone is gutted for rehab, or a lot is excavated for an infill house, the mice and rats living there scatter to the nearest occupied buildings for a few weeks. Neighbors of an active construction site should seal garage door bottoms and foundation gaps before the excavator arrives, and rehab crews should close pipe penetrations with metal mesh before drywall goes up. Those two steps prevent a large share of the North Kenwood calls that start right after a renovation next door.

Mansion, rowhouse, or a unit near Promontory Point

Owners of the big houses should think in three zones. The roofline, with chimneys, dormers, turrets and flashing, is where bats, squirrels and raccoons enter. The wood envelope, meaning porches, sills, sleeping porches and siding, is where carpenter ants and rot collect. The basement and foundation are where mice and the occasional rat get in. A thorough inspection covers all three, and on a house this size it can take two hours, a tall ladder or lift, and an evening return to watch bat exits.

Rowhouses and graystones in North Kenwood have smaller attics, but shared walls change the plan: sealing the party wall in the basement and coordinating treatment with adjoining owners is worth more than any amount of trapping in one unit. Condo and co-op owners in the lakefront towers and older apartment complexes generally deal with roaches and stray mice carried in through garages and trash rooms, and the association controls those common areas.

Detached coach houses and garden sheds on the larger lots deserve their own look. Opossums and striped skunks den under them, and skunks dig small cone-shaped holes in lawns while hunting grubs in late summer. Eastern moles push ridges through the bigger yards in spring and fall. None of these animals threatens the house itself, but a skunk under the back steps makes the yard unusable. A buried L-shaped mesh skirt along the base of the structure keeps them out, installed after a one-way door confirms that any young have left.

A Kenwood year built around the bat calendar

Bats set the schedule for exterior work here, and every other pest fits around them. Owners planning a roof, cornice, chimney relining or tuckpointing project should ask the contractor and a bat specialist to compare notes before scaffolding goes up, because sealing a colony in by accident is easy and miserable to undo. The lake also matters: spring warms a little later on the blocks near the water, so the dates below can slide by a week or two east of Lake Park Avenue.

• February to April: raccoons den in chimney flues, and squirrels have first litters in attics and soffits
• March to May: the window for bat exclusion before females form maternity colonies
• April to July: carpenter ant activity peaks on porches, sills and sleeping-porch framing
• Late May to early August: bat pups in the roost, so specialists inspect and plan but do not seal
• Mid-August to October: bat exclusion resumes, squirrels raise second litters and skunks dig lawns
• October to December: mice push into North Kenwood foundations and big-house basements
• Winter: the best season for roof and vent repairs once wildlife is confirmed out

Checklist for Kenwood houses old enough to have sleeping porches

Most of these items are ordinary maintenance for a century-old house, and each one closes a gap that a specific local animal or insect uses. North Kenwood owners can scale the roofline items to a smaller attic and put extra weight on the foundation and party-wall steps. Work through the list in late winter, before nesting starts, and again in early fall before the mouse season.

• Cap every chimney flue with stainless mesh, including flues that no longer vent anything
• Have flashing checked wherever slate or shingle meets masonry, turret or dormer
• Keep limbs at least eight feet from roofs, dormers and porch roofs
• Probe porch columns, sills and sleeping-porch framing for soft wood every spring
• Clean box gutters and extend downspouts away from stone foundations
• Screen attic and soffit vents with heavy metal mesh rather than plastic
• Repoint lime mortar at grade with a compatible mix and pack utility gaps with copper mesh
• Seal shared basement walls in rowhouse groups together with the neighbors
• Book bat exclusion for spring or late summer, never in midsummer

Landmark districts and what a visit involves

Both the Kenwood District and the separate North Kenwood District are Chicago landmark districts, so exterior changes visible from the street may need a permit through the city's historic preservation staff. Interior treatment, trapping and baiting do not. Exclusion that alters the outside, such as new vent screens, chimney caps or replacement trim, should match original materials, and experienced providers favor copper mesh, painted metal and wood patches over visible foam. Keeping the work small and reversible usually keeps the paperwork simple, but check with the city before anything larger.

A first visit typically begins outside with binoculars on the roofline, then moves through the attic and down to the basement. Bat jobs add a dusk watch and a later return to remove one-way devices. Squirrel and raccoon work follows Illinois wildlife rules and also needs a follow-up visit. When a bat or raccoon is loose inside the house, same-day help is often available. Ask for photos of each sealed opening, since that record is useful when the next roofer or painter arrives.