Upland Pest Control Services, from Euclid Avenue to the Foothills

The city's own history traces Upland to the 1880s, when the Chaffey brothers bought land, built irrigation and laid out the 200-foot-wide Euclid Avenue to tie their colony to Ontario. The northern part, then called North Ontario, broke away in 1902 and incorporated as Upland in 1906, with lemon groves at the center of its economy.

That heritage survives on the city seal and in the Lemon Festival. Upland has nine designated historic districts, among them Victorian Row, Old Magnolia, the Euclid Avenue District and the Arrow/Laurel bungalows. Census estimates put the median home at 1978, with about 1,380 homes from before 1940 and 4,900 from before 1960.

Houses from those decades tend to share the features rodents and insects use: raised wood floors with crawl-space vents, attic louvers, open eaves and plumbing patched many times over. On a designated home we choose screening and sealing points that can come off later without marking the original trim. [5] [1]

UC IPM describes roof rats as climbers that eat citrus while it still hangs on the tree. With oranges they chew a small hole and hollow out the fruit, leaving the empty rind; with lemons they often eat the peel and leave the flesh. They routinely travel 300 feet or more for food, so a rat nesting in one yard may feed in the next.

In a city built on lemon groves, fruit trees in older yards are a likely draw. Roof rats run fence tops and utility lines at dusk, then slip in through attic vents, eave gaps and limbs touching the roof. UC IPM advises picking up fallen fruit, thinning ivy and cutting back limbs within six feet of the roof. [33] [5]

Upland's residential ZIP codes describe different places. In 91786, which lies almost entirely inside the city and covers its southern half, 54% of about 19,600 households rent. Roughly 5,700 homes there sit in buildings of five or more units, some 2,700 in complexes of 50 or more. The area also holds about 1,330 pre-1940 homes and 816 mobile homes.

ZIP code 91784 takes in the north side and San Antonio Heights. There, 85% of households own their homes, 89% of homes are detached houses and the median home dates from 1982. In the south we expect more German cockroaches and bed bugs moving through shared walls; in the north, more rodents and foothill pests around single houses. [2] [3]

San Bernardino County's action guide for San Antonio Heights describes a historic subdivision north of Upland, next to the Angeles National Forest, with curving streets laid out in 1886. Residents list trees, wildlife and large lots among its strengths and the ever-present danger of fire among its weaknesses. The Grand Prix Fire destroyed the home that had displayed the community's holiday star.

Census estimates count about 3,460 residents there, a median home from 1971 and some 230 homes built before 1940. UC IPM notes that California also has native woodrats, or pack rats, which eat fruit and nuts like roof rats but have furry tails. On brushy lots either one may be the rodent in the garage, and clearing brush for fire safety takes cover from both.

PesPro handles rodents and insects only. For coyotes, skunks, opossums and other wild animals, the West Valley district points residents to animal control or the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. [6] [4] [33] [12]

Upland has a place in the local history of invasive mosquitoes. On October 15, 2015, San Bernardino County's vector program found the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, in Upland, the same day it found Aedes aegypti in Colton. The California Department of Public Health now lists aegypti as present in Upland and albopictus as not found, last detected there in 2022.

Mosquito work in Upland belongs to the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, based in Ontario, which counts Upland among its six member cities. In 2024 the Daily Bulletin reported weekly releases of sterile male Aedes aegypti in Upland and five neighboring cities. The district reports Aedes drops of 63% in 2024 and 82% in 2025 at treated sites.

In the district's 2025 weekly updates, West Nile-positive samples appeared in Ontario and Chino but not in Upland. The district also stopped removing bees in December 2024. Upland's code enforcement page still sends green-pool reports to the county's vector line, yet the county's own service list leaves Upland out. PesPro does not treat mosquitoes; call the district at 909-635-0307 or use wvmvcd.org. [7] [8] [9] [15] [11] [10] [14] [16] [17]

San Bernardino County Environmental Health Services inspects every Upland restaurant and market and posts an A, B or C grade. It closes a kitchen outright when it finds cockroaches or rodents, whatever the score.

In the weekly closure lists The Sun publishes from county data, we counted at least nine Upland cockroach closures between November 2024 and July 2026. They were on West and East Foothill Boulevard, North Second Avenue twice, East C Street, North Central Avenue and South Mountain Avenue. One East Foothill shopping center accounted for three of them, in November 2025 and July 2026.

Most of those kitchens reopened within one to three days. For Upland food businesses we schedule visits outside service hours, use products labeled for food areas and keep a written log ready for the inspector. [20] [21] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [29] [30]