It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to deposit any refuse, offal, pomace, dead animals, decaying matter or organic substance of any kind in or upon any private lot, building, structure, accessory structure, premises or in or upon any street, avenue, alley, parkway, ravine, ditch, gutter or into any of the waters of the commonwealth so that the same shall or may afford food, harborage or breeding areas for rats, flies or other vectors.

It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to deposit or permit to accumulate in or upon any premises, improved or vacant, or on any open lot or alley any lumber, boxes, barrels, bottles, cans, glass, scrap iron, wire, metal articles, pipe, broken stone or cement, broken crockery, broken plaster or rubbish of any kind unless the same may be kept in approved covered receptacles or placed on open racks that are elevated not less than 18 inches above the ground and evenly piled or stacked or disposed of as may be approved by the Department of Environmental Resources.

It shall be unlawful to maintain a junkyard or a place for the dumping or wrecking or disassembling of automobiles, trucks, tractors or machinery of any kind or for the storing or leaving of dilapidated, wrecked or abandoned automobiles, trucks, tractors or machinery of any kind or of any of the parts thereof or for the storing or leaving of any machinery or equipment used by contractors or builders or by other persons, which said places may afford harborage or breeding areas for rats or other vectors.

It shall be unlawful to store refuse in containers other than those which shall be made of durable, watertight, rust-resistant material having a tight-fitting lid which must be kept on the container when in use. These containers must be kept clean by thorough rinsing as often as necessary so as not to provide food or breeding areas for flies.

It shall be unlawful to dump, burn, bury, destroy or otherwise dispose of refuse except at an approved refuse disposal site.

It shall be unlawful to collect, haul, transport or convey garbage in open, unenclosed, nonleakproof vehicles.

It shall be unlawful to construct, maintain or use a sewage system, privy, urinal, cesspool or other receptacle for human excrement so that vectors may have access to the excrementitious matter contained therein.

It shall be unlawful to permit weeds or similar vegetation more than one foot high to remain standing in any vacant lot, yard or other place except as may be approved by the municipality.

It shall be unlawful to have, keep, maintain, cause or permit any collection of standing or flowing water in which mosquitoes breed or are likely to breed unless such collection of water is treated or maintained so as to effectually prevent such breeding.

Every owner of a dwelling containing two or more dwelling units shall maintain in a clean and sanitary condition the shared or public areas of the dwelling and premises thereof.

Every occupant of a dwelling or dwelling unit shall maintain in a clean and sanitary condition that part or those parts of the dwelling, dwelling unit and premises thereof that he/she occupies and controls.

Every occupant of a dwelling containing a single dwelling unit shall be responsible for the extermination of insects and/or rodents on the premises, and every occupant of a dwelling unit in a dwelling containing more than one dwelling unit shall be responsible for such extermination whenever his dwelling unit is the only one infested. Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this subsection, whenever infestation is caused by failure of the owner to maintain a dwelling in a rodentproof or reasonable insectproof condition, extermination shall be the responsibility of the owner. Whenever infestation exists in two or more of the dwelling units in any dwelling or in the shared or public parts of any dwelling containing two or more dwelling units, extermination shall be the responsibility of the owner.

Any dwelling, building, structure, accessory structure, premises or any other place may be required to be vectorproofed when found to be providing harborage or breeding areas for rats, flies, mosquitoes or any other vectors.

It shall be unlawful for the owner, occupant, contractor, public utility company, plumber or any other person to remove and fail to restore in like condition the vectorproofing from any building, structure or accessory structure for any purpose.

From and after passage of this chapter, the municipality and/or a representative of the vector-control program is empowered to make inspections of the interior and exterior of all dwellings, buildings, structures and accessory structures, premises, collections of water, or any other places to determine full compliance with this chapter and to determine evidence of vector infestation and the need for vectorproofing or additions or repairs to existing vectorproofing.

Whenever it shall be determined that any dwelling, building, structure, accessory structure, premises, collection of water or any other place is in violation of this chapter, a notice shall be issued setting forth the alleged violations and advising the owner, occupant, operator or agent that such violations must be corrected. The time for the correction of said violations must be given as well as the necessary methods to be employed in the correction.

Whenever said violations shall fail to be corrected within the time set forth and an extension of this time is not deemed to be necessary, the municipality may proceed to abate the said violations in the manner provided by the law.