How DuPage County plans to fight rat invasion near Bensenville

DuPage County officials have taken the latest step in their fight against a rat invasion in an unincorporated neighborhood near Bensenville.

On Thursday, the county’s building and zoning department hired a company to clean up the interior of a home in the White Pines neighborhood and to place rat traps. The homeowner has agreed to the plan and will be billed for it, officials said. The work is expected to begin this week.

County officials say the remediation is part of a multi-year effort to remove the rats. They say the rodents moved into the area after land grading work at O’Hare International Airport and the demolition of the former Mohawk Estates subdivision in Bensenville.

Paul Hoss, the county’s planning and zoning administration coordinator, said the mass disruption from the construction sent rats scurrying into incorporated Wood Dale and Bensenville. When those towns undertook rat abatement programs, the rats moved to White Pines, according to Hoss.

The county has been assisting White Pines residents with their rat problem since the fall of 2024, officials said.

Hoss said DuPage notified 2,000 unincorporated properties, offering three months of rat-killing services if the properties had rats.

The county’s offer was contingent on the homeowners meeting certain requirements, including agreeing to store garbage cans inside, disposing of piles of yard waste, eliminating tall grass and weeds, not feeding wildlife, and getting rid of any chickens they were keeping. Rat control experts say rats are attracted to chicken feces.

Hoss said the county identified at least 50 properties that were eligible, but only 35 agreed to the county’s terms.

Earlier this spring, some White Pines residents complained to the county health department and DuPage County Board members about a house that still had rats.

The house is owned by an elderly man, who was cited in the summer of 2024 for improper storage of debris in the front yard. The county trapped rats in the front yard.

Initially, the man agreed to start cleaning the yard. But then he missed hearings and was fined. The county then learned the man had missed the hearings due to severe medical problems.

Hoss said county workers and some teenage volunteers from a school removed some of the items from the man’s front yard. Rat exterminators told the county it wasn’t worth setting traps in the back yard unless the inside was addressed, Hoss said.

“The real issue on this property is inside the house,” Hoss said.

The county’s Adult Protective Services was brought in to help with the case.

The county will pay for the cleanup, then bill the man by placing a lien on the property, to be collected when it is sold.

If the man had not agreed to the work, the county would have had to go to court to get permission to go inside, Hoss said. “People have property rights,” he said.

Jim Brill, who lives near the house, said Friday that it seems to him the county only took action this spring after neighbors complained to a Chicago television station, which did a news report.

“They (county officials) have been talking to us in circles forever,” said Brill, adding that neither he nor the neighbors he spoke with received any notification from the county about an abatement program.