Shared Walls, Old Wet Ground and a Lagoon Park: Pest Control in McKinley Park

Canal camps, a rolling mill and a racetrack turned park

Irish laborers digging the Illinois and Michigan Canal camped here in the 1830s, and a settlement called Brighton was platted in 1840 and incorporated in 1851. The canal opened in 1848 and a rail line followed in 1857, and the land between them filled with brickyards, a rolling mill staffed largely by Welsh ironworkers and the families who worked them. The low ground flooded so often that people called the district Ducktown. Annexation to Chicago came in stages, starting in 1863, and packinghouse waste dumped into the South Fork of the river created the foul, gas-bubbling channel still known as Bubbly Creek.

The park came in 1901 and 1902. The South Park Commission bought the old Brighton Park Race Track, named the grounds for President McKinley a month after his assassination and dedicated them in June 1902 before a crowd of more than 10,000. A 1906 expansion closed part of Leavitt Street and turned a wading pool into a winding lagoon with small wooded islands. Around it, builders put up the two-flats and four-flats that still dominate the housing stock, along with cottages and a band of bungalows. Those shared-wall buildings, the wet history of the ground and the hard transport edges explain nearly every pest call.

Mice that travel between units in stacked flats

House mice are the leading problem, and the building type is the reason. A two-flat or four-flat is a set of stacked kitchens and bathrooms joined by common plumbing chases, a shared basement and usually a wooden rear porch with stairs that touch every unit. A mouse that enters at a basement window or a gap around the gas service can climb inside the pipe chase to the top floor without ever crossing an open room. Tenants on the second floor often report scratching or droppings first, even though the mice came in at grade, which leads many owners to look in the wrong place.

The fix has to cover the whole building. Trapping in one apartment while the others leave food open and gaps under sinks simply moves the population upstairs or downstairs. Good providers ask for access to every unit, the basement and the rear porch on the same visit, set tamper-resistant stations in the basement and traps in each kitchen, and then seal the pipe openings behind stoves, sinks and radiators with steel or copper mesh and patching compound. Exterior work follows: mortar at grade, window wells, the joint between the porch ledger board and the masonry, and old milk doors.

Owners who rent units should know that Chicago landlords are generally expected to keep rental buildings free of rodent infestation, and that tenants usually need notice before entry. Scheduling one visit for all units, with a short note to tenants about clearing under-sink cabinets, saves a second trip. Most jobs need one or two follow-ups to clear stragglers and confirm that the sealing held through the first cold snap.

Ducktown's legacy: wet basements and the insects they draw

The old flood nickname is not just trivia. Much of the neighborhood sits on low, poorly drained ground, and after a century the basements of flats and cottages still take on water through cracked floors, failing drain tile and combined sewers that back up in heavy storms. That moisture supports a steady crowd of occasional invaders: house centipedes racing across basement floors, silverfish in stored boxes, millipedes along the base of the walls and camel crickets in laundry corners. None of them damage the structure, but a busy centipede population means there is plenty of other insect prey down there.

Treating these pests starts with water. A dehumidifier running near 50 percent, a backwater valve or standpipe plug on the floor drain, downspouts extended well away from the foundation and regraded soil at window wells usually cut numbers sharply. A licensed provider can add a perimeter treatment and seal sill gaps where crickets and millipedes enter. The same backed-up drains matter for rodents, because cracked clay laterals and open floor drains let Norway rats move from the sewer into a basement, so a drain cover does double duty.

Rats along the Stevenson, the tracks and Bubbly Creek

Every side of McKinley Park ends at a corridor: the expressway and canal on the north, rail lines on the west and east, and the overgrown banks of Bubbly Creek near the eastern edge. Norway rats burrow into embankments and weedy strips where nobody mows, then forage into alleys at night for garbage, pet food and garden scraps. The blocks closest to those edges see the most burrows, typically under detached garage slabs, beside fences and beneath rear stoops. Redevelopment of former industrial parcels can push displaced rats into nearby yards for several weeks.

Locked bait stations along the rear fence and garage, carts with intact lids and a mowed strip between the yard and any embankment are the core tools. Because one alley serves many lots, coordinated treatment across neighbors works far better than a single yard. Residents can file a 311 request so the city's rodent crews treat the public alley during the same week a private provider works the yards. Timing matters: baiting one side of an alley while the other side is ignored just shifts the colony a few garages over, and a cleared yard refills within weeks.

Garages deserve special attention here. Many alley garages on these blocks were built with wood sills set directly on the slab, and after decades of freeze and thaw the slab edges crumble and the sill corners soften. Rats gnaw those corners, nest behind stored lumber or tires, and then cross the yard to probe basement windows. A concrete patch at the slab edge, a sheet-metal kick plate on the side door and a cleared garage floor take away the staging area.

The lagoon, its wooded islands and the animals they support

The park's lagoon, islands, natural plantings and old trees give raccoons, Virginia opossums, striped skunks and both gray and fox squirrels a solid home base in the middle of a dense grid. Homes facing the park on Pershing Road, Western Avenue and the side streets just beyond see the most visits. Raccoons test garbage carts and pry at loose roof vents and uncapped chimneys in late winter, when females look for den sites. Squirrels chew into the soffits and gutter edges of cottages and bungalows wherever a branch reaches the roof.

Skunks and opossums prefer low cover: the void under a rear porch, a gap beneath a shed or a crawlspace under a cottage addition. In late summer skunks also pock lawns with shallow, funnel-like holes as they root for grubs. Wildlife specialists remove animals with one-way doors or permitted trapping under Illinois rules, check for young before closing anything, and then seal the opening with heavy mesh or flashing. Pulling bird feeders at night and picking up fallen fruit keeps yards near the park less inviting.

Canada geese and gulls also gather on the lagoon, but they rarely become a household problem. The birds that do are house sparrows and European starlings nesting in dryer vents, gutter gaps and the open ends of porch roofs on flats facing the park. A wildlife specialist can clear the nest outside the breeding window, clean the duct and fit a louvered vent cover with a guard that birds cannot push past.

Two-flat, four-flat, cottage or bungalow: where each one leaks

Knowing your building type helps you describe the problem before a technician arrives. Multi-unit flats fail at shared systems, cottages fail at grade, and bungalows fail at the junctions between the brick box and its wooden additions. Newer infill near the Orange Line stations is tighter but still has garage doors, window wells and utility penetrations that need checking. The list below is the order most technicians follow on these blocks, and it doubles as a self-check you can run with a flashlight before calling.

• Two-flat: shared basement walls, pipe chases behind kitchens, the rear porch ledger and back stairs
• Four-flat: common stairwells, garbage area by the rear door, storage lockers and roof hatch
• Frame worker cottage: sill plate, siding gaps near grade and any crawlspace under a rear addition
• Brick bungalow: back porch junction, attic vents, dormer cheeks and finished-basement paneling
• Infill townhouse: garage door seals, dryer vents and window wells facing the alley

A year of pests between Archer Avenue and Pershing Road

The calendar here is shaped by the lagoon and the damp ground. Wildlife and insects peak in spring and summer, while mice drive the fall and winter calls in the flats. Wet years shift everything earlier, because high water tables and storm backups bring insects and rats up from below. A dry, mild fall does the opposite and can delay the mouse push into the flats until a hard frost arrives in November, when it then comes all at once.

• February to March: raccoons look for den sites in chimneys and attics near the park, and rat burrows show in thin snow along fences
• April to June: squirrel and raccoon litters, pavement ants along walks and termite swarmers in older cottages
• July to August: centipedes, crickets and millipedes in damp basements after storms, skunks digging lawns for grubs
• September to December: mice move into flats through basement gaps and climb pipe chases to upper units
• Winter: the best time to seal attics and porches, since few animals have young in the nest

Prevention list for flats on low ground

These steps target the combination that sets this neighborhood apart: shared-wall buildings, wet basements and wildlife from the park. Owners of multi-unit buildings get the most out of them by doing every unit at once and putting the basement first. Most items are cheap materials and an afternoon of work. The two that cost more, repointing and a backwater valve, are worth pricing together with a mason or plumber, since both also protect the building itself.

• Seal pipe and radiator openings in every kitchen and bathroom with metal mesh and patching compound
• Cover or valve basement floor drains and extend downspouts several feet from the foundation
• Run a dehumidifier in basements and fix slow plumbing leaks
• Repoint soft mortar at grade and cover window wells
• Close the gap where the rear porch ledger meets the building
• Keep a mowed, clear strip between the yard and any rail embankment
• Cap chimneys and screen attic vents on homes facing the park
• Keep cart lids shut and request 311 alley baiting when burrows appear

How a visit works in a shared building

Expect the technician to start in the alley and garage, then circle the building to look for burrows, gnaw marks and gaps at the utility entries. The basement comes next, with attention to floor drains, sill plates and the bottom of every pipe chase. In a two-flat or four-flat, the provider will want to step into each kitchen and bathroom, so arrange access for all units in advance. If wildlife is involved, the roofline and chimney get a ladder or binocular check.

Rodent work usually includes one or two return visits, and wildlife exclusion adds a final trip to remove one-way doors and close the opening. Same-day appointments are often available for rodents and for animals inside living space. Ask the technician to note each opening found in writing, since a cracked garage slab or a rotted porch ledger may be better handled by a mason or carpenter, and the list helps when you split repair costs among unit owners.