Raccoons, Squirrels and Mice Where the Rowhouses Meet 1,200 Acres of Park

A cemetery, a fire line at Fullerton and the brick that followed

The oldest acres of the lakefront park were a burial ground. The City Cemetery opened there in 1843 and eventually held tens of thousands of graves before the city moved most of them and turned the land into parkland, renamed for Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The Couch Mausoleum near the Chicago History Museum is the one piece that stayed. Inland, the ground that became the community area was meadow, marsh and German truck farms. Then the 1871 fire burned north to roughly Fullerton Avenue, and the blocks south of that line were rebuilt over the next three decades, much of it in brick and stone.

That rebuild is still the housing most people picture here: Italianate and Queen Anne rowhouses, greystones with limestone fronts, a scatter of older frame cottages, and later courtyard buildings and lakefront towers. Four city landmark districts, Old Town Triangle, Mid-North, Arlington-Deming and the McCormick Row House District, cover sections of it. Two facts drive nearly every pest call. The masonry is well over a century old, with tired mortar and coal-era openings. And the entire eastern half of the community area backs onto one continuous wildlife corridor of lagoons, ponds, wooded slopes and zoo grounds.

The nightly raccoon commute from the lagoons to the alleys

Raccoons are the animal that turns the most Lincoln Park owners into callers. The park gives them water, hollow trees and food in every season, and after dark they cross Lincoln Park West, Clark Street and Lakeview Avenue to work the alleys behind Cleveland, Orchard and Burling. Blocks within four or five streets of the park see far more raccoon damage than blocks near the river, where rats take over as the main complaint.

The usual story begins in February or March. A pregnant female tests a soft spot in a rear roofline, often where a flat garage roof gives her a platform to reach a porch roof, a third-floor bay or a parapet gap. She tears through rotted fascia or a loose vent and raises her litter in the attic or the shallow cavity under a flat roof. In attached rowhouses that cavity may run over three or four homes, so the thumping a family hears overhead can trace back to an opening two doors away.

Sound helps with identification. Raccoons are heavy and nocturnal, so they produce thuds and dragging noises late at night, while squirrels skitter at dawn and dusk. Because Illinois treats raccoons as protected furbearers, a homeowner cannot simply trap one and drive it across town. Licensed wildlife specialists use one-way exclusion doors or permitted trapping, wait until any young are out or removed by hand, then rebuild the entry with sheet metal and heavy mesh. Roof decks and green roofs added in renovations deserve a look on the same visit, since cushions, planters and drip lines attract the same animals.

Rats on the river side, mice inside post-fire masonry

West of Halsted the problem shifts. The North Branch and its banks near the Webster and Cortland crossings give Norway rats water, cover and soft soil, and the long alleys toward the river add garage slabs to tunnel under and garbage carts to raid. Signs are burrows two to four inches wide with fresh soil at the mouth, chewed cart lids and greasy rub marks along fence bottoms. A 311 request gets city crews to bait the public alley, but burrows inside a private yard or under a garage need a separate plan with locked bait stations, burrow treatment and habitat fixes such as sealed compost bins.

House mice are the year-round indoor issue across the whole community area. They need a gap about the width of a pencil, and 140-year-old foundations offer plenty: crumbling joints, bricked-over coal chutes, abandoned gas line holes and the seam where a modern garden-unit door was cut into original masonry. Deer mice are rare this deep in the city, so nearly every case is the house mouse, which breeds indoors all year. Trapping without exclusion just thins the population for a few weeks.

Cornice squirrels, porch skunks and the occasional coyote

Gray and fox squirrels are nearly as common a call as raccoons. Parkway elms, lindens and honey locusts arch over the wooden and pressed-metal cornices that crown many rowhouses and greystones, and squirrels chew straight into them. Once inside, they nest in the shallow space between the top-floor ceiling and the roof deck, chew wiring and open holes that mice later use. They breed twice a year, in late winter and again in summer, which gives the area two squirrel seasons instead of one. Fox squirrels, the larger rust-bellied species, are common around the open lawns of the park, while gray squirrels dominate the denser street canopy. Both respond to the same fix: trim the limbs back, let animals leave through a one-way door and then close the cornice with material that matches the facade.

Striped skunks den under rear stoops, decks and garden-level steps, especially on lots near the park and the river. Big brown bats roost in older attics and behind loose cornice flashing. Coyotes travel the lakefront park and the river corridor too; they rarely cause structural problems, but they are a reason to keep small pets supervised at night and garbage secured. Any animal that seems sick or unafraid of people should be reported to the city rather than approached.

Rowhouse runs, frame cottages, courtyard buildings and towers

Attached rowhouses share party walls, roofs and sometimes chimney stacks, so one owner sealing one unit only solves part of the problem. Neighbors who schedule cornice and attic work together get far longer-lasting results. The frame cottages that survive in the Old Town Triangle and on the blocks west of Halsted sit on wood sills close to grade, often over low basements or crawlspaces, which invites mice and, where siding stays damp, carpenter ants.

Courtyard buildings along Fullerton, Belden and Diversey behave like small villages. German cockroaches move through shared plumbing chases and mice travel along steam pipe runs, so building-wide treatment through the association works better than one unit at a time. In the high-rises along Lakeview Avenue and Lincoln Park West, raccoons are rarely an issue above the first few floors, but trash rooms, loading areas and ground-level plantings are where rats and roaches get a foothold. For those buildings, management controls most of the outcome.

German cockroaches in courtyard stacks and student flats

Roaches are not the headline here, but they are steady, and they follow a pattern specific to the community area. The large share of rental flats around the DePaul campus and along the Fullerton and Belden courtyard rows turns over every late summer, and moving boxes, secondhand couches and used appliances are the most reliable way German cockroaches travel from one building to the next. Once inside a warm kitchen, they ride the plumbing chase behind the sink up and down the stack, so a tenant on the third floor can inherit a problem that started in the garden unit.

Student leases create a timing problem worth planning around. Many units sit empty for a few days between the end of one lease and the start of the next, which is the cheapest moment to inspect behind appliances and seal pipe gaps under sinks, before new furniture fills the rooms. Owners of small rental buildings near campus who book a treatment for that gap, then a follow-up a few weeks into the school year, usually catch infestations carried in with the move. Chicago's landlord and tenant ordinance generally places extermination on the owner of a rental building, and tenants are expected to keep units clean and provide access. Foggers bought at the last minute tend to drive roaches deeper into the walls.

From February den hunting to October cornice chewing

February and March bring raccoon mating and the first attic break-ins, along with the first of two squirrel litters. April through June is the delicate stretch, when babies are in attics and cornices and exclusion has to be timed so no young are sealed inside. Skunks give birth under porches in May and June, and odor complaints follow once the kits start moving.

Summer is quieter indoors but busy outside. Rats are most active along the river alleys, wasps build in cornice gaps, and big brown bats form maternity colonies that should not be excluded until the young can fly, usually by mid-August. September and October are the second peak: squirrels look for winter nests, mice move inside as nights cool and house centipedes turn up in basements. December and January are the best months for repairs, because most wildlife has settled and sealing an entry will not separate a mother from her litter.

Roofline and foundation checklist for post-fire homes

On these blocks the two zones that matter are the roofline facing the trees and the foundation facing the alley. Raccoons, squirrels and bats enter high; mice and rats enter low. Owners who deal with both in the same season, instead of reacting to one animal at a time, tend to see far fewer repeat problems. Late fall, after leaves drop, is the easiest time to see both.

• Have the cornice, fascia and rear parapet checked every spring, especially within four or five blocks of the park
• Keep limbs six to eight feet from the roof, and use a 311 request for city parkway trees rather than cutting them yourself
• Fit a stainless chimney cap and screen every roof and attic vent with heavy-gauge mesh
• Close coal chutes, old utility holes and gaps around garden-unit doors with mortar or copper mesh, not foam alone
• Keep cart lids shut and replace cracked carts through 311
• Bring roof-deck cushions and pet food in overnight and skip backyard ponds that raccoons treat as a buffet
• In attached rowhouses, coordinate attic and roof work with neighbors so shared runs are sealed together
• Inspect secondhand furniture and moving boxes before they come inside during the August and September lease rush
• Fit a buried mesh skirt around low decks and rear stoops once any skunk or raccoon has moved out

Landmark staff, condo boards and the alley-first inspection

Most inspections start in the alley, where garage roofs, rear porches and back cornices are easiest to read, then move to the attic or top-floor ceiling access and the basement or garden unit. In the landmark districts, exterior repairs that change visible facade materials can need sign-off from the city's landmarks staff, so a provider who knows these blocks will talk through matching wood or pressed-metal cornice pieces instead of bolting on obvious metal patches. Vent screens, interior sealing and most rear-elevation work are simpler.

Condo associations usually approve roof access and any work on common walls, and providers prefer a single board contact before scheduling. Wildlife jobs normally take several trips: one to install exclusion, one to confirm the animals have left, and one to finish repairs. For an animal loose in living space or a raccoon in a ceiling, a same-day visit is often possible when a provider has an opening.

Rodent jobs follow a different rhythm. Expect a first visit that maps entry points from basement to roofline, a second to check traps or stations and seal what was found, and periodic checks until activity stops. In buildings with garden units, providers often ask for access to the shared basement and every unit on the affected stack. Asking for a written list of entry points and recommended repairs is worthwhile, since it helps when sharing costs with a neighbor on an attached run or presenting a plan to a condo board.