Free Rodent Inspection in Fort Lauderdale, FL

You receive a written record with three parts: a list of every opening found, with its location and approximate size; the evidence of activity, meaning where droppings, rub marks, gnawing and nests were seen and which species they point to; and an itemized quote with inspection, exclusion, trapping, cleanup and any ongoing plan on separate lines.

The openings list is the part to keep. It names each spot, for example an open tile eave course along the rear with the bird stop corroded away, a torn soffit screen at the northeast corner, a gap above the AC line set, and it says what material would close each one. When the sealing is done, that same list becomes the record of closures, and a warranty on the closures refers back to it.

The quote follows the list line by line, so you can see which part of the price is the eave, which part is the traps, and which part is optional. Homeowners in forums describe being unable to tell whether a single bundled number is fair; the itemized version is meant to be put beside another bid and compared. Anything the inspection could not reach, for example a sealed-off attic section or a roof too steep to walk, is stated as unreached instead of assumed clear.

Droppings identify the species more reliably than a glimpse of the animal, and the roof rat's are the only ones in this trade with a university measurement behind them: UF/IFAS puts them at a quarter to a half inch long, curved like a small banana, with pointed ends. Where the droppings are found matters as much as their shape.

The animal itself confirms it when seen. An adult roof rat runs 12 to 14 inches nose to tail tip with a tail longer than its head and body, per UF/IFAS, against the heavier, shorter-tailed Norway rat. Where two opinions differ over a juvenile roof rat and a mouse, which happens more than people expect, the tail proportion and the dropping shape decide it. The species sets the trap type, the trap placement and where the sealing effort goes, so this is the first question the inspection answers.

One of the signs below is enough to book, and waiting for a second one costs weeks that the animals spend breeding. Roof rats in Florida breed year-round, according to UF/IFAS, so an attic that is occupied in October is more occupied in December.

• Running or scratching over a ceiling after dark, in any month, and loudest during the cool snaps from November to February
• Droppings on the insulation, in the garage, in a closet below the attic, or along the sea wall and dock
• Mango, avocado, citrus, guava, sapodilla or starfruit on the ground with a hole chewed in one side
• Chewed foam on the AC line set, chewed soffit edges, or torn vent screen
• A musky smell at the attic hatch, or a sweeter odor in a wall that suggests a dead animal
• Activity that came back a few weeks after a previous company treated it
• A closing, a rental turnover or a condo board question that needs a written answer

Many people who call have been told by someone in the house that they are imagining it. The inspection settles the question one way or the other with evidence, and either answer is worth having. Where a formal document is needed for a sale, the rodent clearance letters page covers what that involves.

The inspection costs nothing because the useful decision, whether to seal, trap, clean or walk away, cannot be made without it, and charging for it keeps people from booking until the problem is worse. National cost data from HomeGuide for 2026 prices a standalone rodent inspection anywhere from nothing to $175, and homeowners in forums describe paying around $75 just to receive a bid.

Here the walk, the openings list and the itemized quote come without a charge, and there is no obligation to book the work with the contractor who attended. The quote is a written offer you can take to other bidders, which is how homeowners in forums say a quote should be used. If the findings show nothing, you get that in writing too.

What the free inspection does for the job is set the price on evidence. The tile eave, the number of open vents, the state of the insulation and the length of time the attic has been occupied are all things a phone estimate has to guess at. A quote built on a ladder walk is one that holds when the work starts.

The cheapest plan that stays cheap is the one the inspection maps: close the openings it found with metal, trap what is inside, verify, and stop. Every option that undercuts that first quote gets paid for again, because the eave is still open or a poisoned animal is in the wall.

The poison shortcut deserves its own line because it is the one the inspection most often talks people out of. The EPA describes most rodenticides as anticoagulants that kill four days to two weeks after feeding begins, and has restricted second-generation anticoagulants to tamper-resistant stations in residential settings. A rat fed in the attic dies in the attic. UF/IFAS states that trapping reduces the chance of a poisoned animal dying inside the building, and the inspection is where the trapping plan gets drawn. The rodent exclusion page covers the closures that make the plan hold.

Two or three quotes for the same list of openings is what homeowners in forums recommend, and the free inspection's written findings make that comparison possible. A single number with no list behind it cannot be judged, and the forums are full of similar-sounding jobs quoted from under two thousand dollars to tens of thousands.

Compare the lists before the totals. Two bids that name the same openings and the same materials can be compared on price and on warranty terms. A bid that names fewer openings is cheaper because it does less, and a bid that names foam where the other names a bird stop is cheaper for a reason that will cost you next season. Ask each bidder the same questions: what is included, what is a separate line, how long the sealing is warrantied, how many follow-up visits come with it, and what happens if the animals return.

National cost bands give the comparison a frame. HomeGuide's 2026 figures put trapping and removal at $250 to $1,200, full-home exclusion at $500 to $2,500, and attic cleanup and decontamination at $600 to $2,500. A Broward quote can sit under those spreads because the national guides price crawl-space and basement work that a slab-on-grade house here does not have, while a long tile eave pushes the exclusion line up. The about page describes what the routed contractors are expected to put in writing.

The inspection is free, and the work it leads to falls into national typical-job bands that the findings then narrow to a local figure. Every band below is a national 2026 figure from HomeGuide and is confirmed or corrected by the ladder walk.

What the inspection changes inside those bands is specific. A tile eave with the bird stops gone moves exclusion up because the whole run has to be closed. An attic with droppings through the insulation adds a cleanup line that a clean attic never sees. Rub marks along the sea wall and a boat lift with rope stored on the beams add clearance work at the rear. And a house on a slab with a shingle roof and two open vents can come in under the national exclusion band for the same scope. Ask that a monitoring plan, if offered, be quoted on its own line.

The inspection route is shaped by what Fort Lauderdale houses and yards are like: canal lots with an unwatched rear edge, barrel tile with an open eave course, fruit and palms against the roof, single-family streets from the 1920s through the 1960s, a large condo population, a breeding season that never ends and a storm season that does real damage to rooflines.

Canals, tile and trees

With about 165 miles of navigable waterway inside the city, a large number of lots end at a sea wall, and that is where the inspection goes last and looks hardest. The tile eave and its bird stop, a code-approved metal closure that the Department of Energy recommends installing on tile roofs, get checked along their full length, because a corroded or missing one leaves a rat-sized slot along the whole eave. Fronds and limbs within six feet of the roof are recorded as routes.

Housing eras and condos

Victoria Park, Poinsettia Heights, Rio Vista and Coral Ridge carry houses from the 1920s through mid-century, often with original fascia, soffit screens and tile, so those inspections take longer and find more. A large share of the city lives in condo and apartment buildings, where the inspection is ordered by a board or a manager and covers common attics, trash rooms, roof mechanical areas and the exterior. The neighborhood pages for Poinsettia Heights and Coral Ridge describe what turns up on those streets, and the commercial page speaks to property managers.

Season and storms

Roof rats breed through the Fort Lauderdale winter, so there is no month in which an inspection can be safely postponed. Calls peak in the November to February cool snaps when attic noise becomes obvious, and the June to November rains push animals indoors ahead of that. After a hurricane or a flood, and Broward has had Wilma, Irma and the April 2023 record rainfall, the inspection re-walks every closure, because wind lifts tiles and tears soffits, debris becomes harborage and floodwater sends rats to high ground. Leptospirosis cases climb after hurricanes and floods according to the CDC, which counts rodents among the reservoirs and recommends rodent control once the water goes down. The post-storm inspection is the version of this walk for that window.

Who attends and what to check

Trapping rats or mice in, on or under a structure for hire in Florida requires at minimum an FDACS Limited Commercial Wildlife Management certificate, and any rodenticide use requires an FDACS pest control business license with a certified operator in General Household Pest and Rodent Control. FWC does not license rat and mouse trappers. Every contractor we route holds the FDACS credential the job needs. Before the ladder goes up, ask for the license number and check it with FDACS, ask that the quote be itemized, ask what warranty terms would apply to any sealing, and ask how many follow-up visits are included. The contact page takes those questions ahead of the visit.

A Broward rodent job is a sequence of separate lines, and these are the pages that cover the steps on either side of this one.

• Roof Rat Removal: Trapping out the roof rat that runs the sea walls and rooflines of Broward, sequenced with sealing.
• Rodent Exclusion: Closing the tile eave with a bird stop, then the soffits, vents and penetrations, to the quarter-inch standard.
• Rodent Clearance Letters: A written inspection report for closings, leases, condo boards and insurance files.

How the pieces fit together, and which license to look up, is covered on the about page. The contact page has the hours and the office address.