Post alleges rat infestation at the South Hill Mall. What do investigators say?
A social media post circulating this month alleged that the South Hill Mall has been dealing with a rodent infestation.
A Reddit post from Monday, Jan. 12 alleged that there have been about 70 rats in the food court area recently. The post had 219 upvotes and 44 comments as of Jan. 19.
The mall is located at 3500 South Meridian in Puyallup.
The News Tribune reached out to Kenny Via, spokesperson for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. Via said the health department has received some calls recently, most likely because of the post, and they called mall management on Wednesday. An inspector from the health department visited on Thursday.
“Our inspector checked in on the overall food court area and did a few inspections for restaurants that were due while she was there,” Via wrote in an email to The News Tribune. “... When we inspect food court type settings, we always address pest control with each operation. Mall management confirmed during this most recent visit they’ve focused more closely recently on improving pest control and safety practices.”
Joe Bell, the spokesperson for the Cafaro Company – which owns the South Hill Mall – told The News Tribune there is no active infestation.
“This is kind of a classic case of a small incident getting magnified every time it gets passed along in the rumor mill,” Bell said.
Bell said that in the late summer of 2025, workers at the mall began clearing some overgrown brush.
“We began clearing brush around the property and it kind of stirred up a bunch of mice and rodents and things like that at that time, a few of them started gravitating towards the food courts, as they’re wanting to do,” Bell said. “Some people spotted a few rodents hanging around. We doubled up our efforts with our exterminator and we got rid of most of them.”
While there have been some sightings of mice and rats since then, Bell said the problem is largely under control.
“We have exterminators come in on a regular basis just to prevent that sort of thing – they set traps and bait and that sort of thing,” Bell said. “Food court tenants, especially, must either take part in our exterminator program or hire their own.”
The health department sent a report to The News Tribune, which said the only issue they found were holes in the walls.
“In the shared areas, there are holes where the support beams connect to the wall. These types of holes can facilitate pest movement through a facility,” the department wrote in the report. “Fill holes so that pests cannot travel via the support beams.”
The report included a “facility response” from mall management, which said they are working to address the issues.
“Facility has recently changed pest companies and is more aggressively targeting neglected areas,” mall management wrote in the health department’s report. “Facility management is also working with food court to develop and maintain cleaning schedules to deny pest harborage conditions.”
Bell said there has not been strong evidence of rat sightings since they first cleared the brush last year.
“There were some sightings of a few mice or rats [in late summer and early fall] and since then, we continue our regular extermination program – but nowhere near 70 rats,” Bell said. “We haven’t had any reports of excessive rats or what have you coming around, certainly not for several months.”
Bell also emphasized that the mall takes cleanliness and health standards seriously.
“We do keep a close eye on making sure that we keep cleanliness around the exterior of the building and we require that our food court businesses are vigilant about that as well,” Bell said. “We cooperate whenever health inspectors come in and we know that we’re going to keep up the same extermination program just to make sure we don’t get anything along the lines of little critters coming in from last early fall.”
