[HISTORY: Adopted by the Board of Commissioners
of the Township of Lower Allen 6-10-1985 (Art. 745 of the 1985 Code of Ordinances). Amendments noted
where applicable.]
The following words and phrases, when used in
this chapter, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section,
except where the context or language clearly indicates or requires
a different meaning:
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.
Any condition which provides the necessary environment for
the birth or hatching of vectors.
Water 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.
Fallen into partial ruin or decay.
Includes the storage, collection, disposal or handling of
refuse.
A building or structure used for residential purposes.
One or more rooms in a dwelling, which room or rooms have
fixed cooking facilities arranged for occupancy by one person, two
or more persons living together or one family.
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 or trapping; or by any other recognized and legal vector
control elimination methods approved by the local or state authority
having such administrative authority.
All animal and vegetable wastes resulting from the handling,
preparation, cooking or consumption of foods.
Any place where vectors can live, nest or seek shelter.
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.
Any person who, alone or jointly or severally with others:
Has legal title to any premises, dwelling or
dwelling unit, with or without accompanying actual possession thereof;
or
Has 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 were the owner.
Any natural person, firm, partnership, association, corporation,
company or organization of any kind.
All solid wastes, except body wastes, and shall include garbage,
ashes and rubbish.
Includes glass, metal, paper, plant growth, wood or nonputrescible
solid wastes.
The Board of Commissioners of the Township of Lower Allen,
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
A rodent, arthropod or insect capable of transmitting a disease
or infection. Vectors shall include but not be limited to rats, mosquitoes,
cockroaches, flies, ticks, etc.
Such person or agency or both so designated by the Township.
A form of construction to prevent the ingress or egress of
vectors to or from a given space or building or from gaining access
to food, water or harborage. This term shall include but not be limited
to ratproofing, flyproofing, mosquitoproofing, etc.
A.Â
No person shall 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 or
premises or in or upon any street, avenue, alley, parkway, ravine,
ditch or gutter or into any of the runs, creeks or bodies of water
within or bounding the Township so that the same shall or may afford
food, harborage or breeding areas for rats, flies or other vectors.
B.Â
No person shall 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 is 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
Protection or the Township.
C.Â
No person shall 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 in such a manner as may afford harborage or breeding
areas for rats or other vectors.
D.Â
No person shall store refuse in containers other than
those which are made of durable, watertight, rust-resistant material
having a close-fitting lid which must be kept on the container when
in use or in plastic bags which are durable and watertight and are
secured or tied. These containers must be kept clean by thorough rinsing
and draining as often as necessary so as not to provide food or breeding
areas for flies.
E.Â
No person shall 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.
F.Â
No person shall 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 effectually so as to prevent such breeding.
A.Â
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.Â
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 occupies
and controls.
C.Â
Every occupant of a dwelling containing a single dwelling
unit shall be responsible for the extermination of insects or rodents
on the premises. 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, except that where
infestation is caused by failure of the owner to maintain the 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.Â
Any dwelling, building, structure, accessory structure,
premises or any other place may be required to be vectorproofed when
found by the Vector Control Office to be providing harborage or breeding
areas for rats, flies, mosquitoes or any other vectors.
B.Â
No owner, occupant, contractor, public utility company,
plumber or any other person shall remove or 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 Township
as deemed necessary by the Vector Control Office. The program plan
shall be submitted by the owner or agent of the property on or in
which the vector control program is or will be conducted. The program
plan shall be submitted by the owner or agent of the property on or
in which the 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 the vectors. If, after review
of the program plan by the Vector Control Officer, it is found to
be inadequate or incomplete, additional information may be required,
as well as additional control methods.
A.Â
The Vector Control Officer 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.Â
Whenever it is determined that any dwelling, building,
structure, accessory structure, premises, collection of water or any
other place is in violation of this chapter, a written notice shall
be issued setting forth the alleged violations and advising the owner,
occupant, operator or agent that such violations must be corrected.
The notice may be personally served upon the owner, occupant, operator
or agent or served upon the same by certified mail. The time for the
correction of the violations must be given, as well as the necessary
methods to be employed in the correction, which time shall not exceed
30 days.
C.Â
Whenever the violations fail to be corrected within
the time set forth in the written notice, the Vector Control Officer
may proceed to abate the violations in the manner provided by law.
[Amended 11-10-1997 by Ord. No. 97-16; at time of adoption of Code (see
Ch. 1, General Provisions, Art. I)]
Any person who violates or permits a violation
of this chapter shall, upon conviction in a summary proceeding under
the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure, be guilty of a summary
offense and shall be punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000,
plus court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees incurred by the Township
in the enforcement proceedings. Upon judgment against any person by
summary conviction, or by proceedings by summons on default of the
payment of the fine or penalty imposed and the costs, the defendant
may be sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 90 days.
Each day that such violation exists shall constitute a separate offense,
and each section of this chapter that is violated shall also constitute
a separate offense. In addition to or in lieu of enforcement under
this section, the Township may enforce this chapter in equity in the
Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County.
