Rat Control in St. Matthews, Kentucky

St. Matthews was potato country. From 1910 to 1946 the St. Matthews Produce Exchange shipped so many potatoes it was once called the second-largest potato shipper in the country. After the 1937 flood pushed families out of low-lying parts of Louisville, the farms started turning into neighborhoods, and the city incorporated in 1950, partly to build a sewer system. Mall St. Matthews, the first indoor mall in Louisville, opened around the same time.

Today it's a mix of brick ranches and Cape Cods, older houses near the center, and shopping all along Shelbyville Road.

Rats around the shopping strips

Shelbyville Road has strip center after strip center, plus restaurants and the mall. The dumpster pads behind them feed rats, and the houses on the streets backing up to those centers see the spillover. If you back up to a shopping center, check the fence line and the garage and look for burrows under sheds. Yard and alley rats covers the outdoor work.

Mid-century houses

The post-war houses here are solid but seventy-plus years old. Crawl space vents, basement windows, garage doors and the gaps around utility lines are where rats and mice usually get in. Mice are a big part of the fall calls in St. Matthews, so if your droppings are small, see mouse control. Otherwise rat proofing explains what gets sealed.

• Check crawl space vent screens
• Replace worn garage door bottom seals
• Keep bird seed and dog food in metal cans

Around St. Matthews: Shelbyville Road · Mall St. Matthews · Vogue Theater · Holy Trinity Church · Bellewood · Windy Hills

Also serving Old Louisville, The Highlands, Germantown, Crescent Hill and Clifton, Jeffersontown, Middletown, Prospect, Shively, Okolona, Pleasure Ridge Park and Valley Station.