READING, PA — Pennsylvania ranked first nationally for commercial rodent activity in 2025, according to a Rentokil analysis of nearly 650,000 pest-control service visits, underscoring the operational and compliance risks facing businesses as rodenticide restrictions expand across the United States.
The company’s Commercial State of the Rodent Report placed Wisconsin second, followed by California, New York and Maryland. Washington, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon and Texas completed the top 10.
Washington, Ohio, Oregon and Texas were new entrants to the ranking, indicating a broader geographic distribution of reported rodent activity among Rentokil’s commercial customers.
The findings are based on rodent counts at U.S. commercial properties serviced by Rentokil between January and December 2025, along with changes in new commercial rodent services compared with 2024.
The analysis excludes Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. Rentokil cautioned that changes in customer counts between years may affect the results, meaning the rankings do not necessarily represent rodent prevalence across all commercial properties in each state.
The report identifies changing climate conditions and urban waste-management practices as factors affecting rodent activity, with conditions varying by region and property type.
For commercial facilities, infestations can damage electrical wiring, destroy inventory and interrupt operations. Businesses also face pest-control requirements and inspections that make prevention and documentation important components of facility management.
At the same time, expanding state-level restrictions on traditional rodenticides are changing the methods available to property operators.
“Rodent behavior isn’t uniform across the country; a facility dealing with drought in the West faces entirely different pressures than a logistics hub navigating urban containerization laws in the Northeast,” said Emory Matts, a board-certified entomologist and technical services manager at Rentokil North America.
Matts recommended adapting pest-control strategies to local conditions, emphasizing structural exclusion and digital monitoring rather than relying exclusively on conventional baiting.
Rentokil is positioning its monitoring and building-protection products as alternatives for commercial customers seeking to reduce chemical treatments while maintaining pest-control programs.
Its Flexi Armour system uses knitted stainless steel mesh to seal potential rodent entry points, including loading docks, utility openings and small structural gaps.
The company’s PestConnect platform uses wireless infrared sensors to monitor rodent activity continuously and alert technicians when activity is detected.
Rentokil claims connected monitoring can resolve rodent activity up to twice as quickly as conventional monthly inspections and reduce rodenticide use by as much as 60%.
Those performance figures are based on comparisons involving Rentokil customer sites in the United Kingdom, rather than the U.S. properties included in the commercial rodent rankings. The company cautions that results may vary.
The monitoring platform also produces automated records intended to support third-party inspections and compliance audits. Its cellular-connected devices operate independently of customers’ corporate networks.
For businesses operating warehouses, distribution centers and other commercial facilities, the findings reinforce the importance of maintaining physical barriers, monitoring potential entry points and documenting pest-control activity.
Pennsylvania’s first-place ranking places the state at the center of Rentokil’s reported commercial rodent activity, while the addition of four states to the top 10 illustrates the geographic reach of the problem among the company’s serviced properties.
Support the local news that supports Chester County. MyChesCo delivers reliable, fact-based reporting and essential community resources—free for everyone. If you value that, click here to become a patron today.