The DIY Compliance Checklist
Boise's rat ordinance (city code § 4-1-2) puts four duties on property owners: secure food, remove shelter, seal the structure, and keep it that way. Enforcement starts December 1, 2026, and compliance officers will be checking. Here's the whole job in plain language — most of it is a weekend of work with the right materials.
Rather Have It Done? $49 Inspection
Read it from the source: don't take our word for any of this — the City of Boise publishes the requirements itself on its official Rodent Prevention page, and the full ordinance text is in the City Council record. This page is the plain-language version of what's there.
1. Seal the way in
Rats follow pipes and squeeze through gaps you'd swear were too small — a young rat needs about a half inch, a mouse a quarter. Walk the house slowly, inside and out, and seal:
- Foundation (crawlspace) vents — cover with steel vent guards or ¼-inch galvanized hardware cloth, screwed on, not stapled.
- Attic and gable vents — screen from inside with the same hardware cloth.
- Pipe, wire, and AC-line penetrations — pack with copper or stainless mesh, then seal over it. Foam alone is a snack, not a seal.
- Soffits, fascia, and roof-to-wall joints — repair gaps and rotted wood; rats climb, and the roofline is a highway.
- Doors — sweeps on every exterior door; a seal on the garage door that meets the floor its full width.
- Chimney — a proper cap keeps out rats, squirrels, and birds at once.
Our vent-cover pick: a steel-mesh foundation vent cover with picture-frame trim — 1/8-inch galvanized mesh stops rats, mice, and bees cold while the vent still breathes, and it installs from outside in a couple of minutes with no stucco or siding work. (Plastic vent covers don't count — rats chew through them in a night.) Measure your opening first: this size fits rough openings about 4½–6½ inches high by 13–14½ inches long, and 5×13 or 4.5×13 with the spacer tabs removed.
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Found rotted soffit, a roofline gap you can't safely reach, or a crawlspace you'd rather not enter? That's the line where DIY stops — book the inspection and we'll quote exactly that work.
2. Secure the food
- Trash in a container with a lid that stays shut — the ordinance requires rodent-proof storage. For the city rollout cart you already have, a gravity-release lid lock keeps it shut all week and still opens when the truck tips it.
- Pet food, birdseed, and animal feed in sealed metal containers — never bags in the garage.
- Fallen fruit picked up; bird feeders at least 5 feet up, per the ordinance.
- Compost in a fully sealed, rodent-proof container — most plastic tumblers are not.
Our trash-cart pick: a gravity-release trash can lid lock — stays locked at the house, releases when the truck tips the cart, drops shut when it's set back down.
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Our storage pick: a galvanized steel feed-and-seed can with a locking lid (Behrens, made in the USA) — pet food, birdseed, and feed live in steel, never in bags in the garage. The 6-gallon size holds about 20 pounds of dry goods, and the lid latches shut against rats and raccoons.
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Our compost pick: the Jora compost tumbler — galvanized steel body (not plastic), fully sealed and rodent-proof by construction, and insulated, so it keeps compost cooking through an Idaho winter instead of going dormant. Dual chambers: one side fills while the other finishes.
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3. Remove the shelter
- Woodpiles, lumber, and debris up off the ground and away from the house.
- Dense ivy and overgrowth trimmed back from walls and roofline.
- Standing clutter in crawlspaces and against foundations cleared.
4. Keep it that way — and keep your receipts
Compliance isn't a one-time event. Re-walk the house each fall before rats move in for winter, and keep your receipts, photos, and notes. If an officer ever asks what you've done, a dated record of real work is the difference between a conversation and a citation. That's the same principle behind the compliance files we build for property managers.
Halfway up the ladder and done?
It happens on most houses: the easy 80% goes fine, then there's one ugly spot — a roofline gap, a rotted soffit, a crawlspace run. Book the $49 compliance inspection and we'll find everything, quote it in writing, and credit the inspection when we do the work. How the inspection works.
Call (208) 897-2844