Philly-area households top the list for rodents

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - Philly just topped a national list but there's no bragging rights for this one. According to new census data, the Philly region, which includes Camden, Wilmington and the suburbs has the highest percentage of homes with rodents.

42 percent of American households have dogs and 33 percent have cats. In Philadelphia what do 20 percent have? Turns out, nearly one in five homes in the Philly metropolitan area have either rats or mice, according to the American Housing Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, comparing 25 big cities.

"The Philadelphia metropolitan area came in the highest, at almost 18 percent of the households reporting that they saw signs of rats or mice inside their home in the last 12 months, " Shawn Bucholtz, Dir. of Housing & Demographic Analysis, HUD told FOX 29.

Kathy Fisher, from the Northeast, is the newest member of the club spotting mice droppings in her garage for the first time. Evan's Pest Control to the rescue. They know a thing or two about rodents. Fortunately, for Kathy, it's not that severe Some mouse traps and bait along with a screen and foam behind the stove in the kitchen where the mice got through.

Charles Evans isn't surprised that Philly leads the nation. He says mice are the by product of a construction boom.

"We're uprooting a lot of these houses that have been there since the early 1900's, right? We're ripping them down, building new construction, tearing the soil in the ground up, and your disturbing their homes. They got to go somewhere," he explained.

But Kathy insists that "somewhere" won't be here.