Cowleys Pest Services Before & After Photos

As we get into the winter season and temperatures start dropping, mice become more of a nuisance for homeowners. For survival, these overwintering pests look for warm, dry places to escape the harsh outdoor elements — and our homes are often their targets. Unlike larger wildlife, mice can find the smallest entry points around a home’s foundation to gain entry. They can gain entry through an opening as small as the size of a dime. If they can poke their letting snout into an opening, the rest of the body will follow. Common mouse entry points are garages and crawl spaces. Once inside, mice will travel through wall voids to stay out of sight as they forage for food.  

I was sent to a home in Manasquan, NJ to deal with a mouse problem that was frustrating this homeowner. For mouse infestations, it is critical to perform a thorough inspection of the interior and exterior home perimeter in order to find and seal all of the potential rodent access points. Often, there are droppings and other signs of mouse activity around the openings. Once we find any openings, we assess the problem and seal the gap using a variety of different methods. Because rodents have powerful incisors and an amazing capability to chew through many building materials, we will use chew-proof mesh to ensure that the opening is permanently blocked. With access points blocked and bait traps set, it does not take long for any mouse infestation to be quickly dealt with.

Recently, homeowners in Manasquan, NJ had contacted Cowleys after observing mouse droppings in their home. They were especially concerned with contamination issues because they had three young children. Mice can contaminate food, countertops, and flooring with their droppings and pose a serious health hazard. Their droppings can contain many dangerous pathogens, including hantavirus. 

For any mouse infestation, it is critical to determine their entry points into the home and how they are moving about once inside. Invariably, mice will wind their way to the kitchen when they are foraging for food and water. Here, I pulled the dishwasher and refrigerator away from the wall to look for entry points. Sure enough, there were large holes int he walls that went straight down into the crawl space. Mice are attracted to the warmth of motors in appliances and it is common to find them nesting underneath refrigerators and large kitchen appliances. I sealed the holes with chew-proof wire mesh to block direct kitchen access from the crawl space and keep the mice and the droppings away from the family.  

With the infestation contained in the crawl space, I set up RTU bait stations in the crawl space. These stations contain single-feeding bait that are magnets for mice. The mouse population should be drop quickly and with the kitchen entry points sealed, the mice will not be restricted from the living areas of the home.

Recently, Cowleys installed two commercial-grade whole-house dehumidifiers in homes in Manasquan, NJ to deal with chronic high indoor relative humidity levels. High humidity can trigger dangerous mold growth and generic dehumidifiers are not built to work in the challenging environment of crawl spaces and basements. The SaniDry dehumidifiers we install and service are powerful machines that automatically empty, usually into sump pumps, so there is no water pan to empty or overflow. They turn on and off automatically with a built-in hydrometer. 

As many of us remember from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 or the many Nor’easters to hit the Atlantic coast, heavy rain can cause serious flooding in basements and crawl spaces, especially in our hard-hit coastal communities. Because of the high water table and potential for flooding in Manasquan, we wanted to install them in a way that would decrease the risk that they would be submerged should water flood the basement or crawl space and allow them to continue working. We framed boxes high above ground level to place the machines to keep them safe and operational should the home suffer from a major water intrusion event. We may not be able to prevent flooding, but there are preventative steps we can take to minimize flooding damage.

We were sent out to a home in Manasquan, NJ to deter nuisance birds from the property. The nuisance birds were roosting and nesting above the girder on the rear porch and defecating all over the area. This presents a dangerous situation to the owner and his family as the bird droppings are a health hazard and the nesting debris could contain bird mites. Bird mites are tiny, semitransparent parasites that feed off the blood of birds. When birds leave their nest, the mites are left without a suitable host and will infest the home to feed on the blood of humans.

First, we carefully removed the birds' nesting materials and applied a product that specifically targets bird mites. Next, we installed optical gel along the beams throughout the porch to prevent the birds from roosting. The optical gel is a multi-sensory bird repellant that deters birds using sight, smell, and touch. As a visual deterrent, the birds see a UV spectrum that, to them, looks like fire or smoke (although there isn't any). As a smell deterrent, the optical gel gives off a cayenne pepper or peppermint odor that the birds hate; and as a touch deterrent, the optical gel has a tacky feel to it that the birds dislike. Now nuisance birds are properly deterred from the area. 

A homeowner in Seaside Park, NJ, contacted Cowleys after hearing strange “thumping and scratching” wildlife noises coming from the attic. Something was up there, but she wasn’t interested in investigating to find out what type of wildlife had taken up residence in her attic. Common “attic invaders” that we deal with are squirrels, raccoons, bats, and birds. Here, it turned out that the culprits infesting the attic were squirrels. 

Upon arrival, for the start of my inspection, I want to determine how the animals are gaining access into the attic in the first place. Unless it is a flying animal, the animal must first find a way to gain access to the roof (usually, it’s an overhanging tree branch or utility wires coming into the roofline area) and then, once on the roof, they look for some weakness in the roof structure to exploit. Often, with large wildlife, it’s not a mystery. There is an obvious entry hole in the roof or around the roofline. Here, however, at first glance, I did not see any visible damage indicating where the wildlife was finding its way inside. Upon closer inspection, I found the answer. All four of the plastic static roof vents had large holes chewed through them. Squirrels are in the rodent family and they have razor-sharp teeth that can eat through many types of building materials.

As you can see from the photo, the hole was underneath the plastic cap so it was not causing any water leakage. Nevertheless, the hole was more than enough for squirrels to gain easy access to this homeowner’s attic. Unfortunately, manufacturers do not usually design vents to be pest-proof. Contractors are looking to save money on their projects and price considerations affect the quality of “manufacturer’s standard” building materials. 

To resolve this problem, I covered three of the four roof vents with a tough galvanized steel mesh cover that fits over the entire vent. This cover is strong and durable enough to stop any wildlife from even thinking about using the vent to gain access to the attic. Why didn’t I cover all four vents? I wanted to allow any squirrels hiding in the attic a route to leave. With three of the four access points closed, the squirrels had no choice but to exit through the remaining opening. On this fourth vent, I installed a makeshift temporary cover attached to a one-way door. The door allows animals to leave, but it’s a one-way trip. They are unable to regain access into the attic. Once any animals are trapped and relocated and we are certain that there is no more wildlife activity inside the house, the fourth and final vent cover will be installed. And this wildlife job is complete — all wildlife is safely and humanely removed from the home and all entry points are sealed to prevent a re-infestation.