Pest Control in Florissant, Missouri

Florissant sprays for itself — and writes its own rules

Most of the incorporated municipalities around Florissant contract mosquito work out to St. Louis County. Florissant does not. The city’s Health Department sprays the entire city for mosquitoes during the summer season, as a municipal service run in-house.

The more useful half of that, though, is the part nobody reads. Florissant carries a dedicated Mosquito Control article in its municipal code — Chapter 213, Article III — and it is not decorative. It defines a Health Officer, defines what a breeding nuisance is, lists the approved ways of fixing one, sets a deadline, and says who pays if the city ends up doing the work.

That makes standing water on a Florissant property a code matter, not just a comfort matter. It is worth knowing the shape of it before a neighbour complains or an inspector knocks.

What the code actually prohibits, and how it is proved

Section 213.150 is broad. It makes it unlawful for any person to have, keep, maintain, cause or permit within the city any collection of standing or flowing water in which mosquitoes breed or are likely to breed, unless that water is treated so as to effectually prevent breeding. Note the phrase “or are likely to breed” — the section does not wait for an infestation.

Section 213.160 then enumerates what counts, and the list is long and specific: ditches, ponds, pools, excavations, holes, depressions, open cesspools, privy vaults, fountains, cisterns, tanks, shallow wells, barrels, troughs — excepting horse troughs in frequent use — urns, cans, boxes, bottles, tubs, buckets, defective house roof gutters, and flush closets. A blocked gutter is named in the ordinance. So is a bottle.

Section 213.170 handles proof, and it sets a low bar: the natural presence of mosquito larvae in standing or running water shall be evidence that mosquitoes are breeding there. An inspector does not have to catch an adult. Larvae in the water is the evidence.

The approved fixes are listed — and one of them is a mesh size

Section 213.180 does not simply say “deal with it”. It sets out the methods the Health Officer may approve, and a property owner is entitled to know what is on that list before being told what to do.

Screening is one, with a stated specification: wire netting of at least sixteen meshes to the inch each way, or any other material that will effectually prevent mosquitoes getting in or out. Complete emptying every seven days of unscreened containers is another, together with thorough drying or cleaning — the seven-day figure is the ordinance’s, and it is a useful number to keep in mind for anything that holds water. A larvicide approved and applied under the direction of the Health Officer is a third. Covering the water surface with kerosene, petroleum or paraffin oil once every seven days is a fourth. Cleaning a body of water sufficiently free of vegetable growth and other obstructions and stocking it with mosquito-destroying fish is a fifth. Filling or draining to the Health Officer’s satisfaction is a sixth. And proper disposal, by removal or destruction, of tin cans, tin boxes, broken or empty bottles and other articles likely to hold water is the seventh.

Several of those are things a household can do without hiring anyone. That is worth saying plainly: the ordinance’s own remedies are mostly maintenance, not chemistry.

Three days, and then every day after that

Section 213.190 is the part with teeth. If the person responsible for the premises fails or refuses to take the necessary measures within three days after written notice from the Health Officer — or within a longer period if the notice specifies one — that person is deemed guilty of a violation.

Then it compounds. For each day after the expiry of those three days, or after whatever longer period the notice set, that the responsible person continues to fail or refuse, they are deemed guilty of a separate violation. The clock does not stop at one offence.

And the city can act on its own. Where there is such a failure or refusal, the Health Officer is authorised to take the necessary measures to prevent breeding, and all necessary costs incurred for that purpose become a charge against the person responsible. That is the sequence worth understanding: notice, three days, daily violations, city does the work, bill follows.

Landlord or tenant? The ordinance answers it

Florissant has a great deal of rental housing, and Section 213.200 does something most municipal codes leave vague — it allocates responsibility expressly.

The starting point is the person using or occupying the premises. If nobody is using or occupying them, it is the person who by law is entitled to immediate possession. Where premises or appurtenant grounds are used by two or more tenants of a common landlord, the landlord is the responsible person for that shared ground — while each tenant remains responsible for the part they occupy to the exclusion of the other tenants.

Then comes the provision worth reading twice. Where the premises are occupied under a yearly or monthly tenancy, or under a lease of not more than a year, or under any lease by which the lessor is expressly or impliedly obliged to keep the premises in repair, and the standing water is owing to disrepair of the building, to a natural quality of the premises, to a condition that existed when the tenant took possession, or to something done on the premises by the landlord during the tenancy — then the landlord is the person responsible.

In plain terms: a tenant who lets a bucket fill is on the hook, but a tenant whose yard floods because the guttering is broken or because the ground has always sat wet is not the one the ordinance points at. And anyone who creates a water collection on premises they neither own nor occupy is responsible alongside the owner, landlord or occupant.

ZIP codes served in Florissant

Florissant spans several north county ZIP codes, and a dispatch match is made to the address rather than to the city name.

Where the city’s job stops and a licensed company’s begins

The municipal programme and the ordinance both deal with mosquitoes and standing water. Neither touches the structural work. Termites under a floor joist, mice in a garage, ants in a kitchen, cockroaches in a rental unit and bed bugs in a bedroom are private-sector jobs in Florissant, and they need a company licensed by the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

Missouri certifies applicators by category rather than issuing one general pest licence, and the Missouri Pesticide Use Act is explicit that a certified commercial applicator may not determine the need for, supervise or use a pesticide for a particular purpose unless certified in the proper category for it. On the Department’s own application form the structural categories are listed separately: 7a General Structural, 7b Termite, 7c Fumigation, 8 Public Health.

One practical consequence for a rental property: if a landlord is the person the ordinance holds responsible, the landlord is also the one arranging and paying for any licensed work. Getting that clear early saves an argument later.