Mid-rise living and Glendale's 1960s–80s building wave
Census estimates count about 41,500 Glendale homes in buildings of five or more units, 53.4% of the city's 77,800 housing units, and more than 20,000 in buildings of 20 units or more. About 42.7% of all homes were built between 1960 and 1989, the median home dates to 1966, and close to two in three households (64.8%) rent.
Bigger buildings give German cockroaches more connected space to work with. UC IPM describes the German cockroach as California's most common indoor species, especially in multi-unit housing, living in warm, humid spots near food and water. In a mid-rise, those spots are linked by stacked kitchens, pipe chases and shared rooms such as trash chute rooms, laundry rooms and utility closets, so a colony in one unit can be fed by harborage several floors away.
That is why a Glendale building job usually starts with the common areas and the units above, below and beside the one that called. PesPro runs programs at more than 500 multi-unit properties, and managers get a written list of the units and openings that need attention.
Sources: [1][6]
Who handles a Glendale rental with roaches: the city, not the county
In most of Los Angeles County, the county's Environmental Health inspectors check apartment buildings for vermin, naming cockroaches and rodents as examples. Glendale is one of two cities the county lists as not having adopted the housing standards of the County Health Code, and the county states that it has no enforcement authority over housing issues there.
For a Glendale tenant whose landlord is not dealing with an infestation, that points to the city. Glendale's Code Compliance Program investigates reports of Glendale Municipal Code violations at residential and commercial sites and takes reports at (818) 548-3700. Restaurants are a different matter: LA County Public Health still enforces the state food code in Glendale, as it does everywhere in the county except Long Beach, Pasadena and Vernon.
Our part is the treatment record. After each visit the owner or manager receives a written summary of what we found, where bait and growth regulator were placed and what needs sealing, so tenants, owners and city inspectors can work from the same facts.
Sources: [2][3][5]
Brand Boulevard dining and the county's vermin closures
A KTLA roundup of LA County Public Health closures from March 1 to 27, 2025 lists a restaurant on N. Brand Blvd in Glendale closed for vermin infestation on March 20 and reopened on March 25. Vermin infestation was the reason given for 44 of the 56 closures in that county-wide list. The listings do not say whether the pest was a cockroach or a rodent.
When a kitchen shares a building with apartments or other businesses, the trash area, grease lines and shared walls connect them, and treating only the restaurant can leave a source behind. Our restaurant service runs before opening or after close, uses gel baits, growth regulators and trapping rather than broadcast spraying near food, and logs each visit around what inspectors check: droppings, live activity and harborage.
Sources: [4][5]
