Pest Control and Exterminator Service in East Lansdowne, PA

Shared cellar walls and porches in 1930s twins

Twins from the 1930s were built with stone or brick cellar walls, coal-era openings that were later patched, and clay or cast-iron pipes that pass between units. Mice and German cockroaches use those routes, so a problem in one half usually means activity in the other.

Wood porches, rafter tails and window trim on houses this old weather and soften. Carpenter bees drill the trim each spring, and moisture in old cellars keeps house centipedes and silverfish common.

Pre-war twins usually drain both roofs into gutters that meet at the party line, so a clog on one side sends water down the cellar wall both families rely on. Rain that soaks the joist ends and sill plate there is what draws subterranean termites and carpenter ants into the framing. Rear additions and enclosed back porches added in later decades often rest on shallow footings with wood close to the soil.

Small lots matter too. Back yards are short, trash cans sit a few steps from the cellar door, and mature trees hang over rooflines, giving squirrels and carpenter ants a bridge to the eaves. When cold weather arrives, stink bugs and boxelder bugs pack into the gaps around original wood window frames.

From Media through Springfield to East Lansdowne

We head east through Springfield and reach East Lansdowne in about 20 minutes. Thom and his team check the cellar first, especially the shared wall and old pipe runs, then the porch and attic access. The inspection is free, and nothing is treated until you've approved a written quote.

Between Lansdowne and Upper Darby

East Lansdowne is a small borough tucked between Lansdowne and Upper Darby Township, both of which share its early-20th-century housing. With roughly 2,700 residents, East Lansdowne is small enough that its homes sit close to Lansdowne's shops on Lansdowne and Baltimore avenues and to the Lansdowne station on SEPTA's Media/Wawa Line, the same rail line that runs to our home base in Media. Students attend the William Penn School District, which the borough shares with Lansdowne, Yeadon, Darby, Colwyn and Aldan. Because the housing is so uniform, the pest problems are predictable: mice and German cockroaches crossing party walls, damp-cellar insects, carpenter bees and paper wasps on porch woodwork, and bed bugs moving between the rented halves of twins. Overhanging trees round out the list by sending squirrels and ants to the rooflines.