[HISTORY: Adopted by the Board of Commissioners of the Township of
Wilkins 4-11-1983 as Ord. No. 703. Amendments
noted where applicable.]
GENERAL REFERENCES
Solid waste — See Ch. 135.
This chapter shall be known as the "Vector Control Ordinance."
For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:
- ACCESSORY STRUCTURE
- A detached structure which is not used or not intended to be used for living or sleeping by human occupants and which is located on or partially on any premises.
- BREEDING AREA
- Any condition which provides the accessory environment for the birth or hatching of vectors.
- COLLECTIONS OF WATER
- Those contained in ditches, pools, ponds, streams, excavations, holes, depressions, open cesspools, privy vaults, fountains, cisterns, tanks, shallow wells, barrels, troughs, urns, cans, boxes, bottles, tubs, buckets, roof gutters, tanks of flush closets, reservoirs, vessels, receptacles of any kind or other containers or devices which may hold water.
- DILAPIDATED
- Fallen into partial ruin or decay.
- DISPOSAL
- Includes the storage, collection, disposal or handling of refuse.
- EXTERMINATION
- The control and elimination of vectors by eliminating their harborage places, by removing or making inaccessible materials that may serve as their food, by poisoning, spraying, fumigating, fogging, larviciding, trapping or by any other recognized and legal vector-control elimination methods approved by the local or state authority having such administrative authority.
- GARBAGE
- All animal and vegetable wastes resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking or consumption of foods.
- HARBORAGE
- Any place where vectors can live, nest or seek shelter.
- MUNICIPALITY
- The Township of Wilkins.
- OCCUPANT
- Any person over one year of age living, sleeping, cooking or eating in or actually having possession of a dwelling unit or a rooming unit, except that in dwelling units a guest will not be considered an "occupant."
- OWNER
- Any person who alone or jointly or severally with others:
- A. Shall have legal title to any premises, dwelling or dwelling unit, with or without accompanying actual possession thereof; or
- B. Shall have charge, care or control of any premises, dwelling or dwelling unit as owner or agent of the owner or an executor, administrator, trustee or guardian of the estate of the owner. Any such person thus representing the actual owner shall be bound to comply with the provisions of this chapter and of the rules and regulations adopted pursuant thereto to the same extent as if he/she were the owner.
- REFUSE
- All solid wastes except body wastes, and shall include garbage, ashes and rubbish.
- RUBBISH
- Includes glass, metal, paper, plant growth, wood or nonputrescible solid wastes.
- VECTOR
- A rodent, arthropod or insect capable of transmitting a disease or infection. "Vectors" shall include but not be limited to rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies and ticks.
- VECTOR PROOFING
- A form of construction to prevent the ingress or egress of vectors to or from a given space or building or gaining access to food, water or harborage. This term shall include but not be limited to ratproofing, flyproofing and mosquitoproofing.
A.
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.
B.
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.
C.
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.
D.
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.
E.
It shall be unlawful to dump, burn, bury, destroy or
otherwise dispose of refuse except at an approved refuse disposal site.
F.
It shall be unlawful to collect, haul, transport or convey
garbage in open, unenclosed, nonleakproof vehicles.
G.
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.
H.
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.
I.
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.
A.
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.
B.
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.
C.
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.
A.
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.
B.
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.
A program plan and specifications for private vector-control programs
may be required to be submitted to the municipality as deemed necessary by
the vector-control program director. Said program plan shall be submitted
by the owner or agent of the property on or in which said vector-control program
is or will be conducted. The program plan shall state the type of vectors
to be controlled, the name of the company contracted to carry out the program
and any and all work to be conducted in an effort to control said vectors.
If after review of the program plan by the vector-control program director
it is found to be inadequate or incomplete, additional information may be
required as well as additional control methods.
A.
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.
B.
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.
C.
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.
Any person, firm or corporation who shall violate any provision(s) of
this chapter shall, upon conviction before any District Justice, be sentenced
to pay a fine not exceeding $1,000, plus the cost of prosecution. Each day's
violation shall constitute a separate offense. In default of the payment of
such fine and costs, said person shall undergo imprisonment in the Allegheny
County jail for a period not to exceed 30 days.
