Before & After Photos

As temperatures drop, mice will seek refuge in your home to escape the harsh winter elements. For a mouse, your home is paradise — it’s always warm and cozy, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to hide, there’s plenty of nesting materials,  and your kitchen offers an unlimited food supply. , 

Whenever we are called out to resolve a rodent infestation, we not only treat the infestation. It is critical to determine how these disease-carrying animals are accessing your home. Here, in this home in Keansburg, I determined that mice were gaining access through gaps around AC lines entering the home. Utility and telephone lines entering your home to are common access points for small rodents like mice and they are always on the top of my “must inspect” list. A small gap around wiring or pipes that we easily overlook is, for a mouse, a wide-open entrance way that offers 24/7 access  into your home. Unfortunately, because of their diminutive size, mice can slip through the smallest of gaps and cracks, and these openings can sometimes be a challenge to find. I set up traps in the home and sealed the entry point to prevent further access. These pictures show the “before and after”  sealing of this entry point.

I’ll be returning for a follow-up visit in two weeks to make sure that these overwintering mice are gone for good. 

Some wily squirrels were able to successfully deceive a previously hired nuisance wildlife serve at this Keansburg, NJ home and escape capture. Apparently, the technician focused on looking up and over the roof of this home for potential access points to try and keep the squirrels out. To be sure, squirrels are arboreal rodents and they often initially access the home by first making their way to the roof, usually by either by traversing wires coming into the home or using overhanging branches as a roadway. However, squirrels don’t always access the home through the roof, fascia, or  soffits. Good wildlife technicians have 360 degree thinking and look at the entire picture, always taking into account every possibility.

I first asked the homeowner where she was hearing most of the wildlife activity. This often gives me a good starting point of where to start the inspection for entry points. She told me that most of the noise was coming from inside the wall voids of the first floor — nowhere near the roof or attic. Based on this, I decide to first inspect below rather than above. Sure enough, these squirrels were gaining access to the home behind the plaster walls of the living room from below the front porch.  

The best course of action was excluding them by setting up a one-way device over the opening that allowed them to leave the home, but prevent their return. For the rodents, it’s a one-way trip! After sealing this area and monitoring it for activity for two days, we sealed the opening for good.  We followed up with the homeowner who told us that she’s heard absolutely nothing in the walls after our exclusion. These squirrels were permanently evicted. Needless to say, after a few too many weeks of frustration, she was quite relieved that her squirrel problem was finally resolved.

Pigeons and seagulls can find landing spots on ledges and other areas of rooftops, especially on the Jersey shore. For this house in Beach Haven, NJ, the homeowners were having issues with nuisance birds making their roof the birds new home.

These birds were landing and roosting on the gutters, causing a mess. We installed bird spikes to deter these birds and send them elsewhere.

I was dispatched to a home in Lanoka Harbor, a Lacey Township community, just north of Forked River. The homeowner had contacted Cowleys to take care of a flea problem in the home’s mechanical room that housed the HVAC equipment. Also, he asked us to replace the rotted plywood doors and wood framing used to access this small space located in the rear of the house. Many Cowleys technicians have extensive backgrounds in home repair and improvement, especially those of us assigned to either the Crawl Space Solutions By Cowleys Division, which specializes in helping homeowners resolve water, moisture, and high humidity problems in their crawl space, or our wildlife division where critter infestations are often accompanied by damage to insulation and other building materials.

A homeowner in Lincroft had been dealing with mice in their basement, attempting to handle the problem on their own for quite some time. According to the homeowner, they would trap some mice, and drive them 4-5 miles away to a wooded area, and release them. Thereafter, new “replacement” mice would soon appear. This cycle went on for a while. Finally, they decided that their DIY plan of action was not working, and they contacted Cowleys for a permanent resolution of the problem. 

A mouse infestation will not be resolved unless and until their access points into the home are identified and sealed. Without doing this exclusion work, you’ll be in the same situation as these homeowners and dealing with a never-ending stream of mice. Also, I pointed out to the homeowners that, although they had good intentions by not immediately killing the mice, they did not do them any favors by releasing them into a strange area. These relocated mice would likely die because they don’t know where to find adequate food, water, or shelter in their new surroundings, and in their weakened state would likely succumb to predation. 

Upon arrival, after speaking with the homeowners, I grabbed my flashlight and began my inspection. Finding the access points for mice presents a challenge for pest control technicians, especially if they really want to do the job right. Unlike larger wildlife that will use of carve out readily noticeable entry points into the home, mice can get through extremely small cracks and gaps. Because of their fur, mice are even smaller than their appearance. They only need a 1/4" diameter hole (about the size of a dime) to squeeze through. Mice don’t have collarbones. The rule of thumb is that if a mouse is able to poke its little head through a hole, the rest of their body will follow.

Looking for any potential entry points, I thoroughly inspected the basement perimeter, paying careful attention to any gaps around utility pipes or wires going through the foundation wall. These are often the preferred entry route for mice. I found two areas of concern: A PVC pipe discharge line from the sump pump and an outdoor water spigot. Both had sizable gaps that would easily allow rodent entry. 

Before laying out my equipment that I’d be using to control the mice, I first grabbed my hepa-vac to vacuum up all of the rodent droppings. Mouse droppings are toxic, and may contain many dangerous pathogens, including hantavirus. When the droppings dry out, spores can become airborne if the droppings are disturbed, creating a potential health hazard, especially in an enclosed area like a basement. After cleaning the area, I set up some rodent bait stations around the sill plate in the basement, dusted the two openings with a tracking powder, and sealed the holes from the outside with copper mesh. 

The homeowners were relieved that they would no longer be dealing with mice, a problem that had been going on for far too long.