Old wood houses: Craftsman bungalows and 11 historic districts
South Pasadena was incorporated in 1888, and much of it was built long before modern building codes. The city's design guidelines for historic residences rank the Craftsman bungalow, built from about 1900 to 1925, as the most common style in its historic neighborhoods, followed by Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival houses and turn-of-the-century homes such as Queen Anne Victorians. The city has designated 11 historic districts, and surveys in 2002 and 2017 identified roughly 60 more areas that may be eligible. Across all housing, the Census puts the median build year at 1953.
Those guidelines encourage owners to repair original features — wood windows, wood shingles, exposed rafter tails under the eaves — rather than replace them. That keeps the streets beautiful, but houses of this age often have many small openings: unblocked bays between rafter tails, wood sashes that have shrunk in their frames, worn screens on foundation vents and gaps where newer wiring or plumbing was run through old siding. Because several of these usually show up on the same house, our inspection covers the whole exterior, not just the room where you saw a pest.
Old exposed wood can also draw drywood or subterranean termites. PesPro does not perform termite fumigation, but if our inspection turns up frass, mud tubes or damaged wood, we record it in your report so you can have a termite specialist evaluate it.
Sources: [21][17][18][16]
The City of Trees and the roof rats that travel through it
South Pasadena calls itself the City of Trees and has been recognized as a Tree City USA community. A 2026 urban-tree-walk guide counts roughly 21,000 trees and about 100 acres of parks, from the 1930 Moreton Bay fig known as the Library Tree to the mature sycamores and oaks of Eddie Park; Library Park alone holds at least 21 tree species.
A canopy that dense is very likely to serve as a highway for roof rats. They are agile climbers that follow overlapping branches, palm fronds, fence tops and utility lines to rooftops, and on a Craftsman house the open eaves can put an attic entry right where a branch ends. During every rodent inspection we map those branch-to-roof crossings and tell you which ones a tree professional should cut back.
Sources: [19][20]
A dead crow in 2021 and the city's West Nile record
In early June 2021 the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District tested a dead crow collected in South Pasadena and confirmed West Nile virus — the first sign of the virus circulating anywhere in Los Angeles County that year. It wasn't the city's first detection: a dead bird, apparently a Western scrub-jay, found in a South Pasadena yard on July 28, 2017, had also tested positive.
By the end of the 2021 season the district had recorded 11 West Nile–positive mosquito samples and 4 positive dead birds in the city. 2022 brought another 11 positive samples and one bird, and 2023 a single positive sample. The district reported no positives in South Pasadena in 2024 or 2025, but it describes the virus as endemic and detected every year, with mosquitoes most active from May through October.
Most infected people never feel sick — county figures cited in 2021 put it at roughly one in five with symptoms. Local coverage of the crow finding urged residents to report dead birds to the state hotline, 1-877-WNV-BIRD, so testing can continue.
Sources: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Day-biting Aedes mosquitoes, and who to call about them
The California Department of Public Health lists both invasive species — Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus — as present in South Pasadena. Unlike native evening biters, these mosquitoes bite during the day, and when the district warned in 2019 that they were establishing in the area, it noted that a bottle cap of water is enough for them to breed. Its advice: spend ten minutes a week tipping out plant saucers, buckets, toys and anything else that holds water.
Since July 1, 2018, the city has belonged to the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District, which handles mosquito surveillance, inspections of neglected pools, mosquitofish and day-biting mosquito complaints (626-814-9466 or sgvmosquito.org). LA County Public Health named South Pasadena the 2019 Ultimate Champion of its West Nile Virus Prevention Challenge. PesPro does not offer mosquito control; when our technicians notice standing water during a visit, we point it out and refer you to the district.
Sources: [10][11][12][13]
Renters, shared walls and apartment pests
Of South Pasadena's roughly 10,200 households, 56% rent. About 5,200 of the city's 10,800 homes are in buildings with two or more units — around 2,450 in buildings of 5 to 19 units and nearly 1,200 in buildings of 20 or more — while only about 44% are detached single-family houses.
Shared walls, plumbing chases and laundry rooms let German cockroaches and bed bugs move between units, so treating one apartment in isolation often doesn't hold. We work with tenants and property managers to check neighboring units and provide written preparation steps before treatment. Our technicians speak English and Spanish, and our website is also available in Chinese at pespro.com/zh — about 15% of South Pasadena residents speak Chinese at home and about 12% speak Spanish.
Sources: [16]
Fleas, typhus and the health agency that covers South Pasadena
Despite the name, South Pasadena is not served by the City of Pasadena's health department. Los Angeles County Public Health covers it, as it does every city in the county except Long Beach, Pasadena and Vernon. In April 2026 the county reported 220 flea-borne typhus cases for 2025, an all-time high (up from 187 in 2024), with nearly nine in ten patients hospitalized. These are county-wide numbers; no breakdown for South Pasadena has been published.
The fleas that spread typhus ride on rats and opossums, and older houses with crawl spaces and raised porches often give those animals shelter. The county's advice matches our rodent work: keep pets on year-round flea control, don't leave food outside, seal openings under the house and report rat or opossum activity. Our flea and tick service treats the home, and exclusion keeps the hosts out.
Sources: [15][14]
