Sewers are historically considered the main reservoir for commensal rodents, posing threats to urban ecosystem health. Aboveground rodent signs are often assumed to give clues to high sewer infestation, which can chronically restock surface areas. Thus, current sewer-baiting programmes are mostly reactive, responding to increased surface infestation. Conversely, proactive sewer-baiting (regardless of infestation levels) is often disregarded because cost-effectiveness is not always addressed. We explored the extent to which the surface infestation is related to rodent feeding activity on sewer and surface baits by analysing a set of proactive bait records in Bologna city, Italy. Sewer bait intakes were significantly lower than surface ones, suggesting that proactive sewer-baiting is generally less effective. As surface infestation increased, probability of recording surface bait intake increased significantly but this was not reflected by increased sewer bait intake, suggesting that surface infestation is not always a reliable indicator of sewer infestation. This should discourage the use of reactive sewer-baiting as a routine strategy. Poison-based control programmes by themselves are scarcely predictable and strategically limited, and ideally they should be handled within an ecologically based integrated pest management approach for achieving satisfactory results.