Inspection, trapping and exclusion for rats and mice in Gaithersburg houses, townhouses and business premises.
Fastest: call (855) 974-4733. Or send this and we call you back.
Rodent control combines trapping, removal and sealing the ways rodents get in, because trapping alone leaves the route open. In Montgomery County rat complaints go to the Department of Health and Human Services Vector Control Team, and property owners are responsible for elimination on their own property. Gaithersburg Pest Control covers Gaithersburg and the surrounding communities.
The county is clear about where responsibility sits. Its April 2026 rat control flyer says complaints go to the Department of Health and Human Services, Licensure and Regulatory Services, Vector Control Team, that property owners are responsible for rat elimination, and that the team does not supply poison or traps. Chapter 39 of the county code makes it unlawful to allow an infestation or the conditions that contribute to one.
That changes how you should read a quote. A service that sets traps and leaves is treating the symptom; the thing the county expects you to deal with is the conditions. Food, water, harborage and access are the four, and three of them are usually fixable without any product at all.
Mice and rats need different work, and the inspection decides which you have. Droppings, gnaw marks, runways, grease marks, the size of the gaps being used and where the noise is coming from all point one way or the other. This page does not name a rat species, because no species-level information was sourced for this area.
The county's rat control flyer directs complaints to the Department of Health and Human Services, Licensure and Regulatory Services, Vector Control Team. The team does not supply poison or traps. Property owners are responsible for elimination, and Chapter 39 of the county code makes it unlawful to allow an infestation or conditions contributing to one.
So reporting and solving are two separate steps. Reporting matters, particularly where the source is a neighbouring property, a vacant lot or a commercial bin area. Solving is work on the property itself: seal the building, remove the food and water, cut back the harborage, and trap what is already inside.
If you rent, tell the owner or management in writing and keep a copy. The county's Department of Housing and Community Affairs enforces Chapter 26 housing maintenance standards through Housing Code Enforcement, and tenants are directed to MC311 for pest and rodent complaints. In 2025, local news reported that an apartment unit in Silver Spring was condemned over rats after a video circulated widely.
Because trapping removes the rodents present and sealing removes the supply. A building that is still open refills from the same route within weeks, and the trap line becomes a permanent service rather than a fix. The gaps are also cheap to close compared with the cost of repeat visits.
The gaps that matter are rarely dramatic. A worn garage door seal, the hole where a cable enters, a gap at the AC line set, a torn dryer vent flap, a soffit corner lifted by a storm, the void where a deck ledger meets the siding. A technician should be able to show you each one.
Sealing has to use materials that hold up. Expanding foam alone is not a rodent barrier, because it is chewed through. Hard closure at the penetration, with foam only as a filler behind it, is what lasts. Our crawl space and attic exclusion page covers the larger version of this work.
Only past reporting is available. A county warning in 2021 linked rat complaints to Brood X cicadas. News reports give 436 rat complaints in June 2004 against 60 in June 2003, and around 100 complaints in 2013, reported as about 90 percent below the 2004 level. No current figures are published here.
Those numbers are history rather than a current measure, and complaint counts reflect reporting behaviour as much as rat numbers. They are worth knowing only because they show the problem rises and falls rather than sitting still.
What is constant is the county's framing: conditions drive infestations, and conditions are the owner's to fix. Our guide to the rat problem in Montgomery County goes through that in more detail.
Trapping is usually preferred indoors, because it removes the animal rather than leaving it to die in a wall void, where it causes a smell and a secondary fly problem. Bait, where used, belongs in tamper-resistant stations and is placed with children, pets and non-target wildlife in mind.
That judgement is made on site. A single mouse in a kitchen and a long-running rat problem in a commercial bin area are not the same decision. What should always happen is that the technician explains what is being placed, where and why, and what to do if you find a dead animal.
Do not place your own bait in an attic or wall void before an inspection. It is the most common cause of the smell complaints that follow a do-it-yourself attempt, and it does nothing about the entry point.
The species, the size and construction of the building, how long the problem has run, how many entry points need sealing and how reachable they are, whether yard work and burrow treatment are included, and whether the plan is a single job or a scheduled programme. The price is confirmed on site.
Sealing is the variable with the widest range. Three penetrations at ground level is a short job; a long soffit line, a lifted siding course and a garage that needs a new seal is construction work as much as pest work, and it should be described item by item.
No dollar figures appear anywhere on this site, because no sourced local figure exists. Ask for the trapping, the sealing and any scheduled follow-up to be set out separately so you can see what you are paying for.
Do not sweep or vacuum dry droppings, nesting material or a dead rodent; dampen the area first, wear gloves and a mask, bag the waste and wash afterwards. Keep children and pets away from traps and stations. Never handle a live rodent, and never put your hand into a void you cannot see. Treat gnawed wiring as an electrical hazard and have it looked at. Ring (855) 974-4733 rather than reaching into an attic or crawl space yourself.
Mice or rats, and how long they have been there. Droppings, gnaw marks, runways, grease marks, burrows and the size of the gaps in use all answer it, and the answer sets the trap type, the placement and the sealing specification.
The technician works the outside of the building: gaps at pipe and cable penetrations, the garage door seal, torn vent screens, gaps under siding, the gap where a deck meets the wall, and openings around an AC line set. Rodents need very little space, and a single missed gap keeps the problem running.
Overgrown vegetation against the wall, a wood pile on the ground, bird seed, pet food stored in bags, an unsecured bin, a compost heap, fallen fruit and a bin store that cannot be closed. This is the part the county code is written about.
Traps and, where appropriate, tamper-resistant stations are placed on runways and at harborage rather than in the open. Placement matters more than quantity. Carcasses and nesting material are removed rather than left in a void.
Permanent closure of the gaps found: hard materials at penetrations, a sound garage door seal, intact vent screens, repaired soffit and siding gaps. Sealing is what turns a short-term result into a lasting one.
A follow-up looks at the traps, at any new activity and at whether the sealing has held. If activity continues, the inspection widens rather than the trap count rising.
Usually a sealing and trapping job around a kitchen, utility room, garage or basement, with the critical gaps being small ones: a quarter of an inch at a pipe collar is enough. In a townhouse row, mice travel along shared walls and service runs, so the neighbours matter.
Bigger animals, bigger gaps, and usually a burrow and an outdoor food source behind it. Work extends into the yard: burrows, the bin area, the shed base, a compost heap, dense ground cover. The county's position is that elimination on your property is your responsibility.
Restaurants, food premises, apartment buildings and condo blocks need documented, scheduled work covering the whole building rather than one unit. The commercial pest control and apartment pest control pages cover how those run.
Tell us what's happening and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a quick fix, and what rodent control should cost.
Density and shared structures shape rodent work here. The townhouse clusters of Montgomery Village, planned in the late 1960s and 1970s for what is now 34,893 people, and the close-set New Urbanist blocks of Kentlands and Lakelands in Gaithersburg, put shared walls, alleys, rear garages and common bin areas into the picture. In a row, sealing one house helps that house; the row needs the whole run looked at.
Gaithersburg itself had 69,657 people and 27,182 housing units at the 2020 census, with Rockville at 67,117 people and 27,953 units and Germantown at 91,249. Commercial strips and apartment blocks sit close to houses across all three, and a bin area or a restaurant service yard a street away is a genuine factor in what a residential property sees.
At the rural edge the sources are agricultural and structural rather than municipal. Boyds and Barnesville, the latter with 68 residential units, rely on private wells and septic according to planning documents, and there the work covers outbuildings, feed storage and sheds on the ground as much as the house. Bear in mind that Ijamsville is in Frederick County, so the Montgomery County code and county offices named here do not apply there.
Finding and permanently sealing the entry points into Gaithersburg attics, crawl spaces, soffits and foundation voids.
Inspection-led treatment for household pests in Gaithersburg homes and rentals, with the plan explained before any work starts.
Scheduled, documented pest programmes for Gaithersburg food premises, retail, offices, schools and warehouses.
Coordinated pest work for Gaithersburg apartments, condos and townhouse rows, covering neighbouring units and shared spaces.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
No sourced dollar range exists for pest control in Gaithersburg, so this guide explains what moves a quote instead: the pest, the type of home, how far the problem has spread, how hard the spots are to reach, and how many visits the job needs.
Rat complaints in Montgomery County go to the Department of Health and Human Services Vector Control Team.
A tenant with pests in a Montgomery County apartment should tell the owner or manager in writing first, since the repair is theirs.
No. The county's rat control flyer says complaints go to the Department of Health and Human Services Vector Control Team, that the team does not supply poison or traps, and that property owners are responsible for elimination.
This site does not name one, because no species-level source was found for this area. It makes no practical difference to the work: the inspection, the sealing and the trapping are decided by the building and the evidence.
Days to weeks, depending on numbers, the size of the building and how quickly the entry points get sealed. Sealing is usually the step that decides whether the clearance holds, not the trap count.
Any bait used is placed in tamper-resistant stations and sited with pets, children and wildlife in mind, and indoors trapping is often preferred instead. Tell the technician about every animal in the household before anything is placed.
Ring it in. Locating and removing a carcass, cleaning the area and dealing with the flies that follow is part of the job, and it is the usual consequence of bait placed in a void without an inspection.
A county warning in 2021 did tie rat complaints to Brood X cicadas. It is worth knowing as past reporting rather than as a prediction, and no current figures are published here.