Cowleys Pest Services Before & After Photos

A homeowner in Belmar, NJ was having issues with wildlife entering the void above the soffit. Soffits are the horizontal boards that fit under the eaves of the roof. They protect the area underneath a roof’s overhang from rain and snow which, if left unprotected, could cause the beams to rot, become vulnerable to mold growth, and attract insects and wildlife. Also, soffits are often vented in order to help air to circulate in the attic. Separate from a home’s soffits are the fascia boards, which cover the front of the soffit. The fascia gives a roof’s edge a finished look and serves as a mount for the home’s gutter system which funnels rain and snow run-off off the roof and away from the home’s foundation. Since soffits and fascia are exposed to the elements, they will often start to decay if not maintained. All too often, we see wildlife, especially squirrels and raccoons, exploiting weaknesses in a home’s structure. Often, they’ll rip their way through damaged fascia boards, soffits, or roofing shingles, to gain access inside the attic. 

This home’s soffits were in poor shape. Much of it was falling and left unsecured, leaving it wide open for wildlife to enter — which they did! The only good news for this Belmar homeowner was that the soffit wasn’t connected to the attic, so the wildlife simply nested in the void above and did not gain access inside the home. Once wildlife enters the attic, damage can be extensive. Usually, if the infestation is not quickly resolved, the insulation is destroyed and the whole area becomes a toxic mess from all the wildlife droppings. 

The Cowleys home improvement crew was called in. We removed the damaged soffits, cleaned out all of the built-up nesting debris, and then replaced the soffits with high-performance PVC trim boards. This material won’t rot, cup, split, twist, or warp. The new soffits looked great and blended in with the house. Now, with this home improvement, this homeowner will not have any further issues with wildlife exploiting weakened and damaged soffits in order to gain access to the void above to use as their private nesting home for their offspring.

After homeowners in Belmar, NJ, found themselves with squirrels in their attic, they contacted Cowleys to deal with this wildlife infestation. Squirrels managed to gain attic entry by tearing off a loose piece of soffit in the corner of the roofline.  Builders often call these particular roof returns as “pork chop.” Apparently, they use this peculiar label because this common, generic roof return is quick and easy to build relative to other designs. The trade-off is that they aren’t a particularly elegant design. For homeowners that don’t care about their home being featured in Architectural Digest, this roof design is perfectly fine. With these returns, the raking fascia is built flush with a triangular piece that covers up the end of the rafters and merges with the soffit below. Sometimes, however, these roof corners are used by some wildlife like squirrels and raccoons to gain entry into the attic by attempting to tear off or bend this metal triangular piece enough for them to squeeze into the attic. Sometimes, like with this squirrel infestation, they are successful!  

Upon arrival, after inspecting the roof area, I saw what I needed to do to catch these wily critters. First, I placed a “one-way” door over the opening used by the squirrels. These “one-ways” do precisely what their name says — they allow wildlife to exit, but they soon find out that it’s a one-way trip. These doors only open in one direction, so they are blocked from returning. To monitor wildlife activity, I like to place a piece of tape on the door so that i know whether any wildlife has left 

I also placed two baited traps to lure the unwanted guests out of the attic. Often, when there are now objects placed where the animals are coming g and going, they are timid about exploring them and they need to get acclimated to the objects so they don’t perceive them as a threat. To catch wildlife, you need a bit of patience. Also, it doesn’t hurt to use the right bait that’s too tempting to resist! 

After it is clear that there is no more wildlife activity or the animals have been trapped, I’ll patch the area with aluminum flashing and ensure that the roofline is secure and the homeowners won’t be visited by any more squirrels. Often, especially with wildlife infestations that have gone on for some time, the attic has been contaminated from droppings, and the area must be deodorized and sanitized. Cowleys has experienced crews that specialize in wildlife clean-up and the removal and replacement of contaminated insulation.

With the attic now sealed, this homeowner should not be visited by any more raccoons.

A homeowner in Belmar, NJ, who was in the process of building his dream home, decided to invest in a dehumidifier for his basement, and he contacted us. Cowleys has a contractor division with an experienced crew that installs and services SaniDry dehumidifiers. These commercial-grade dehumidifiers that are specifically engineered for the challenging environments of crawl spaces and basements, and we limit our line to these workhorse machines. In these sub-grade areas of homes, chronic humidity is a problem, especially with our hot and muggy New Jersey summers. 

Dehumidification is the only effective long-term solution to remove excess moisture in the air. High indoor humidity levels are responsible for a host of problems for including mold growth, a favorable environment for insects, wood rot and other structural damage. Also, dehumidifiers improve the liveability of a home. They help eliminate musty odors that can waft into the living areas of the home and dramatically improve indoor air quality by removing airborne mold spores and other allergens, helping relieve allergy and other lung and respiratory symptoms. After inspecting the homeowner's basement, and based on the size (cubic volume) of the basement, we recommended a SaniDry XP commercial dehumidifier.

You may be thinking why not go with a residential dehumidifier? Can there really be that much of a difference between these commercial-grade dehumidifiers and the generic residential ones? The short answer is that there is no comparison. As many homeowners find out the hard way, the generic dehumidifiers sold in hardware stores simply aren’t up to the job. For example, the SaniDry XP that we installed for this homeowner is a powerful energy-efficient dehumidifier that outperforms standard household dehumidifiers by as much as 10 times -- while using the same amount of energy to run! The SaniDry XP can effectively cover indoor living spaces over 3000 square feet, making it well-suited for basements and crawl spaces over 40” high. 

The key difference between a residential dehumidifier and a SaniDry commercial dehumidifier is its ease of use and automatic operation. A residential dehumidifier requires human intervention to empty the pan of collected dehumidified water. If not timely emptied, the pan overflows, and usually, the machine shuts off once the flow bucket is full. Our commercial dehumidifiers direct the extracted water pulled out of the air into either a sump pump or, if a sump pump isn’t present, a condensation pump that pumps the water through a condensate hose to the outside of the basement. These machines work 24/7 year-round automatically. 

The homeowner was ecstatic to know that he would have clean, dry air circulating throughout his home and the reduced humidity levels in his basement would prevent mold growth. For him, this dehumidifier was an investment that protected both his home and his family’s health. 

These Sea Girt homeowners had a wildlife infestation in their attic. They had an exclusion done by our nuisance wildlife team who blocked all of the potential entry points into the attic. Unfortunately, although the wildlife was gone and could not re-enter, the homeowners were left with destroyed attic insulation and a toxic mess of animal droppings. 

We removed all the contaminated insulation and added TruSoft blown-in cellulose insulation. Blown-in cellulose insulation maximizes home comfort, has the highest Class-1 fire safety rating, is resistant to mold and pests, is eco-friendly, and optimizes energy usage for year-round peace and savings!

I was sent to a home in Belmar, NJ to help a homeowner dealing with a bird infestation. Some birds had decided to use her chimney to nest. Chimneys can be quite popular nesting spots for birds since they resemble high perches in nature. Nuisance birds can cause significant property damage with their acidic droppings. As pretty as birds are from a distance, they happen to be dirty wildlife and are dangerous to have around homes and other structures. Their droppings are toxic and contact with them or even just  breathing in their airborne particles can cause serious respiratory diseases. 

First, to deal with this bird infestation, I carefully removed any nesting material and debris left behind from the birds in the chimney. I then installed a chimney cap and placed Bird Barrier Optical gel in plastic pucks on top of the chimney, gluing them in place with a silicone adhesive.  

Bird control is all about behavior modification. The objective is to create a inhospitable environment, so they move elsewhere. This bird gel is one of my favorite bird deterrents. To us, this product looks like a bland, boring white gel. However, birds look at it much differently. They have far better color vision that us and see a much broader spectrum of colors. To birds, this gel looks like a giant fireball. Birds aren’t the brightest of creatures, but no bird has any interest heading into a raging fire! This big bird illusion is highly effective in keeping them away.

This Belmar homeowner was quite relieved that I had taken care of her bird problem so quickly. Once birds find a good nesting spot, they don’t usually leave on their own. As a bird control specialist, my job is to determine the best “incentives” for that property to get the birds to vacate on their own. Now, with the chimney cap and optical gel, these birds will be relocating to a friendlier location.