Los Angeles County Pest Report: What 131,000 Health Inspections Show

• 10,178 of 100,386 food inspections (10.1%) cited rodents, insects or other vermin.
• 2,049 inspections ended with the permit suspended and the facility closed for vermin, about 13 a week.
• 68% of the inspections that cited vermin still ended with an A grade.
• Citations peak in August (14.7% of inspections) and bottom out in February (6.6%).
• Among 69 communities with at least 400 inspections, Montebello had the highest rate (22.8%) and Woodland Hills the lowest (2.6%).
• In housing, complaint investigations cited pests 31.4% of the time, against 4.4% for routine inspections.
• Cockroaches appear in 75.4% of the housing inspections that cite a pest.

Each record in the county data is one inspection of a restaurant or food market. We counted an inspection as citing vermin when the inspector marked the item “No rodents, insects, birds, or animals” out of compliance. That happened in 10,178 of 100,386 inspections, or 10.1%, across 43,087 facilities.

Most citations are minor and cost 2 points. In 2,049 inspections the inspector scored the item at 11 points. Under the county's Retail Food Inspection Guide, a major violation deducts 4 points, plus 7 more when it results in a permit suspension. A suspension orders the facility closed until the hazard is corrected.

That is about 13 closures for vermin every week of the period. The guide lists vermin infestation among the imminent health hazards that justify closing a facility on the spot, alongside problems such as sewage and a lack of water.

Every inspection starts at 100 points and an A needs 90, so an 11-point deduction alone rules out an A. A minor citation does not: 6,881 of the 10,178 inspections that cited vermin (68%) still ended with an A. The letter in the window does not tell a customer whether vermin were noted.

The county assigns each facility a risk category based on how much food handling it does. High-risk facilities, which prepare the most food from raw ingredients, were cited most often.

Vermin citations follow the calendar. Pooling all three years, the share of inspections citing vermin climbs from 6.6% in February to 14.7% in August, about 2.2 times higher. Summer months ran above winter months in each year of the data.

The data records what inspectors found, not why. The timing is consistent with what pest control technicians see in the field: warm weather shortens insect breeding cycles, so cockroach and fly activity builds through summer. For a kitchen, that makes late spring the time to tighten sanitation and exclusion, before the peak.

On paper, yes. The share of inspections citing vermin went from 8.9% in the first program year to 13% in the latest. Closures for vermin went from 579 to 903.

Read the jump with care. In fall 2025 the county renumbered its violation items, and the vermin item changed from code F023 to F124. A new inspection form can change how often an item gets marked. The number of recorded inspections also fell, from 40,331 to 28,717. The data cannot separate a real increase from those changes.

The county records each facility's postal city, so Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Venice or Van Nuys appear on their own. To keep small samples out, these tables list only the 69 communities with at least 400 inspections, out of 163 in the data.

A rate describes what inspectors recorded, not how clean a community's restaurants are. It moves with the age of the buildings, the mix of facility types and the season in which inspections fell. The full table for all 163 communities is in the restaurant and market CSV.

The county inspects hotels, motels and apartment buildings with five or more units in 85 of its 88 cities and in unincorporated areas. A separate program covers smaller rentals in unincorporated areas. Together they recorded 30,709 inspections of 22,068 properties, and 3,190 of them (10.4%) cited at least one pest.

Cockroaches dominate: they appear in 75.4% of the inspections that cite a pest. An inspection can cite more than one pest, so the shares add up to more than 100%. Cockroaches inside a unit is the number 4 most-cited housing violation of any kind, with 2,106 citations.

How the inspection started matters most. When a complaint triggered the visit, inspectors cited pests in 31.4% of 6,778 investigations. Routine inspections cited them in 4.4% of 23,931.

Yes. Buildings with 51 to 100 units were cited for pests in 23.6% of inspections, against 7% for buildings with 11 to 20 units. A likely reason: more shared walls, more trash volume and more turnover give cockroaches and rodents more ways to spread between units.

This table lists the communities with at least 150 housing inspections and the highest share citing pests. Compare them with care: the share of visits that began as a complaint differs widely between communities, and complaint visits cite pests far more often.

All 140 communities, with cockroach, rodent and bed bug counts, are in the housing CSV.

For a kitchen, the pattern points to timing. Citations start climbing in April and peak in late summer, so sealing gaps, fixing leaks and tightening storage in spring does more than reacting in August. Our restaurant pest control page covers how PesPro documents each visit for health inspections.

For apartment owners, the gap between complaint and routine visits is the message. By the time a tenant calls the county, pests are usually established. A recurring program with unit-level cockroach control and rodent control catches a problem before it becomes a cited violation with a re-inspection deadline. See our program for property managers and the bed bug protocol for rentals.

• Source. Six open datasets from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Division, covering October 2023 through September 2026. The county last updated them on 2026-10-06.
• Food. 100,386 inspections and 420,777 violation records, joined by serial number. An inspection cites vermin when it carries violation code F023 or F124. A closure is a vermin citation scored at 11 points.
• Not counted. The item on premises, cleaning supplies and vermin-proofing (F043, F144) is excluded, because it also covers storage and cleanliness.
• Housing. 30,709 inspections and 47,156 violation records from two programs. An inspection cites pests when it carries a cockroach, rodent, bed bug, fly or other-insect code. Codes for animals are excluded.
• Coverage. Pasadena, Long Beach and Vernon run their own health departments and are not in the data.
• Limits. These are citations, not infestations. A facility with no inspection in the period, or a pest the inspector did not see, leaves no record. No business or building is named in this report.

Anyone can reproduce these figures: download the county files listed under Sources, join violations to inspections by serial number and apply the rules above.

Yes. You may quote, chart and republish the figures and both CSV files under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. Please credit “PesPro analysis of Los Angeles County Environmental Health data” and link to this page.

• Restaurant and market vermin citations by community (CSV)
• Housing pest citations by community (CSV)

Suggested citation: PesPro, "Los Angeles County Pest Report" (2026), analysis of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Division inspection data, October 2023 through September 2026. https://www.pespro.com/la-county-pest-report

Reporters and researchers who need a cut of the data that is not shown here can write to info@pespro.com. The county refreshes its files each quarter, and this page is rebuilt from them.