Fruit Drop Cleanup — Because Fallen Fruit Is a Rat Buffet

Apples, plums, crabapples, and nuts rotting under a tree are one of the strongest rat attractants in a Boise yard — and Boise's rat ordinance requires fallen fruit and nuts to be kept out of rats' reach. Pest pros don't pick up fruit; that's a different trade. This page connects you with vetted local cleanup crews who do.

Call for Fruit Cleanup What the Ordinance Requires

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Why fallen fruit matters

A single loaded fruit tree can drop hundreds of pounds of food in a season. Left on the ground, it feeds rats nightly, draws them onto the property, and gives them a reason to stay once the fruit is gone — in your crawlspace, garage, or attic. The ordinance's attractant rules were written with exactly this in mind: fruit on the ground is food stored within rats' reach, and removing it is the homeowner's responsibility.

What the cleanup crews do

• Fruit drop pickup. Fallen fruit and nuts gathered from lawns, beds, and under canopies — including the rotted layer that mowers miss.
• End-of-season gleaning. Unpicked fruit stripped from the tree so it never becomes next month's drop.
• Haul-off and disposal. Everything leaves with the crew — no bags of fermenting fruit sitting at your curb feeding the next colony.
• Seasonal visits. For heavy producers (apple, plum, walnut, crabapple), scheduled pickups through drop season so the ground never stays covered.

How it works

1. Call. You describe the trees and the mess. Calls are recorded for quality, same as every call through this site.
2. Routing. Your call goes to a vetted local cleanup crew — a yard and cleanup operator, not a pest control company. Different trade, same vetting idea: known people, checked work.
3. Cleanup. The crew quotes the job, picks it up, and hauls it off. If they find signs rats have already moved in — burrows, droppings, gnawing — they'll tell you, and the rat specialist side of this site takes it from there.