Rodent Control in the Catalina Foothills

Up in the Foothills, it's pack rats. Almost always. The area climbs from River Rd. and the Rillito up to the base of the Santa Catalinas and runs east toward Sabino Canyon and Tanque Verde. Lots are big, and a lot of owners left the desert alone: saguaro, prickly pear, cholla, palo verde, ironwood. It's beautiful. It's also exactly what a pack rat is shopping for, and a lot of newcomers figure that out within the first year.

The calls from up here sound a lot alike. A midden in the cactus bed by the front courtyard. A rat in the garage. A car parked out on the long driveway that won't start. And every fall, a casita that sat empty all summer with deer mouse droppings on the bedspread.

Washes coming down off Finger Rock and Pima Canyon

Small washes run down from Finger Rock, Pima Canyon and Ventana Canyon right through the neighborhoods, and each one is a nighttime highway for rodents. Hillside homes have retaining walls with drainage holes, rock landscaping and boulders, and pack rats use all of it. A lot of houses have walled entries with cholla growing against the stucco, which puts the rat about six feet from your garage door.

The houses are a mix: flat-roofed Santa Fe and territorial styles with parapets and scuppers, mid-century ranches on the lower slopes, tile-roofed homes higher up. Most have no grass buffer at all, so the desert comes right up to the wall. That's why sealing hillside homes matters as much as trapping and clearing middens up here. Our midden guide shows you what a live pile looks like.

Long driveways and detached casitas

Foothills lots spread things out: a detached garage here, a casita there, the car parked out front near open desert. Each building is its own target, and the tech checks all of them, not just the main house. If the car's been chewed, tell us on the call. Pack rats under the hood are as common up here as anywhere in town.

If you head out for the summer, seal the garage gaps, park inside if you can, get the pet food and birdseed out, and have someone peek at the casita and the car while you're gone. If you come back to droppings, follow the casita cleanup steps or have it done for you. Neighbors to the west in Casas Adobes deal with the same thing.

Deer mice in the guest house

Casitas up here tend to sit empty from May until somebody's family flies in for Thanksgiving. Deer mice find the gap under the door early in the fall and move into the dresser drawers and closet shelves. When you open it up, don't sweep. Air it out, glove up and wet everything down first. A tech can trap whatever's still in there and close the gap under the door so you're not doing this again next year.

Around Catalina Foothills: Sabino Canyon Recreation Area (east edge) · Ventana Canyon and Pima Canyon · La Encantada at Campbell Ave. and Skyline Dr. · River Rd. and the Rillito · Sunrise Dr. and Swan Rd. · Finger Rock trailhead (ZIP 85718, 85750)

Also serving Oro Valley, Marana, Tanque Verde and East Side, Midtown and Sam Hughes, Vail, Sahuarita and Green Valley, Rita Ranch, Casas Adobes, South Tucson and West Side.