Rodent Control in Barberton, Ohio

O.C. Barber founded Barberton in 1891 and planned it around factories, worker housing and a compact downtown. It grew so fast that a newspaper said it seemed to have appeared by magic, and the Magic City name stuck. Lake Anna, a spring-fed lake named for Barber's daughter, sits at the center of town, and the city lies in a valley along the Tuscarawas River and the old canal. These days most people outside town know it for Barberton chicken.

A lot of the housing is old and was built for factory families, so Barberton's rodent calls sound a lot like Akron's: mice in old basements, and rats near the water and downtown.

Old worker houses and their basements

Barberton's older homes have the same weak points as Kenmore and Firestone Park: aging foundations, worn sills, old coal chutes and gaps around utility lines. Mice use all of them once the weather turns. Basement rodent control and sealing the foundation are the most common calls. Where mice have wintered over a few years, the insulation upstairs can be a mess, and attic cleanup may be needed too.

Many of these houses have detached garages and narrow side yards, and older doubles share basements, so mice move easily between buildings.

If you rent, tell the landlord in writing. If you own a double, deal with both sides at once, and if you have rentals, the gap between tenants is the easiest time to get the sealing done.

Rats by Lake Anna, the river and downtown

Water and food bring rats, and Barberton has both. Homes and businesses near Lake Anna, the Tuscarawas and the downtown blocks see rats around dumpsters, garages and banks. Rat control starts outside with burrows and locked stations, then moves to sealing the garage and the house. Compost piles and backyard chickens draw them too, so mention either one on the call.

Some of the rat trouble in older parts of town ties back to aging sewer lines, and a rat coming up through a basement floor drain is a plumbing question as well as a pest one. Summit County Public Health takes rat complaints and can bait problem areas, which helps when it's more than one property.

Kenmore is just up the road to the northeast, and the Kenmore rodent page covers a lot of the same ground. Our guide to sealing an old basement applies to many Barberton homes. Call and tell us where in town you are and what you've been seeing.

What a Barberton flood leaves behind for rats and mice

Wolf Creek runs through the low parts of Barberton, and the streets around 14th Street have flooded hard more than once, in 2013 and again in 2019. Water in a basement does more than ruin a furnace. It soaks the sill, softens old mortar and opens gaps where it pulls dirt away from the foundation. Rats living along the creek banks get flushed out by high water too. They look for higher, drier ground, and that often means a garage or a pile of wet debris stacked at the curb.

After a flood, get soggy boxes and carpet out quickly instead of letting them sit in the garage for weeks. Once the basement dries, walk the walls with a flashlight and look for fresh cracks and holes along the floor joint. That's the right time for basement and crawl space rodent work, before mice find the new openings. Lake Anna is a different setting. The spring-fed lake sits in a 21-acre park downtown, and the Mum Festival fills it with people, food stands and extra trash the last weekend in September, right as mice start moving indoors. Homes on the blocks around the park should check their garage seals before that weekend.

Around Barberton: Lake Anna · Downtown Barberton · Tuscarawas River · Ohio & Erie Canal · Norton Avenue (ZIP 44203)

Also serving Highland Square and West Akron, Firestone Park, Goodyear Heights, Kenmore, North Hill, Ellet, Merriman Valley, Cuyahoga Falls, Stow.