Before & After Photos

I was sent to Middletown, NJ with my colleague Alfonso to help a homeowner who had contacted Cowleys after finding mouse droppings in several areas of their home. With any rodent infestation, our priority is finding any actual or potential entry points. Finding mice entry points is a challenge since they can squeeze through the smallest of cracks and crevices. A mouse needs only about a quarter-inch gap to find their way inside your home. If a mouse is able to poke its snout through a hole, the rest of its body will follow. To successfully resolve a mouse infestation, it is critical that these entry points are located and sealed. Failure to do so means that you’ll likely have ongoing problems with these overwintering pests, even if the ones already in your home are eliminated. 

As outdoor temperatures drop, mice, other wildlife, and certain insects will look for harborage in your home to escape the harsh outdoor elements. if there is a weak link for them to gain access inside your home, they’ll find it. Mice commonly look for entry points around the home’s foundation. They’ll enter into the crawl space or basement and then find their way to the living areas of the home when they forage for food and water. One of the most common, and often overlooked, entry points for mice are pipe chases, those spaces where pipes, such as from air conditioning units and the home’s plumbing system, as well as electrical supply lines, are run into the home. Pipe chases often become entry points for overwintering mice and bugs when the original sealant around the pipes starts to become worn and disintegrates, creating a perfect “tunnel” for pests to enter the home. We found several possible entry points around some pipes, and sealed them with chew-proof copper mesh. To reduce the mouse population in and around the home, we set up rodent control bait boxes in the home’s interior as well as the exterior perimeter. Finally, as part of our protocol, we scheduled a two-week follow-up to re-inspect and replenish the bait boxes as necessary. We are confident that with the exclusion and the bait boxes. We’re confident that it won’t take long for the infestation to be resolved, and this homeowner will no longer find droppings and other upsetting signs of mouse activity in his home.

A Port Monmouth, NJ homeowner contacted Crawl Space Solutions By Cowleys to resolve his crawl space problems. The homeowner decided that it was time to invest in his home by repairing an unsightly area of crawl space that was visible from the basement. Also, the homeowner was concerned, and rightly so, that his open crawl space was allowing excess moisture seeping out from the soil into his home. The moisture source was increasing the indoor humidity (you could feel the wet air when standing near the crawl space) and the likelihood of dangerous mold growth. 

These pictures show the “before and after” of our crawlspace project.

First, we removed all the debris and old insulation, leveled the ground for proper draining and installed drainage matting,  which is a dimpled plastic mat that allows all excess moisture to work its way over to the sump pump. Afterward, we installed a vapor barrier. A vapor barrier is a heavy-duty, 20-mil 7-ply sandwich of high and low-density polyethylene with a polyester-cord reinforcement. By encapsulating the crawl space & installing the vapor barrier over the foundation walls and floor will create a continuous air and moisture barrier. The vapor barrier is extremely durable and is treated with an antimicrobial to prevent mold

Summer is not only a busy time for us, but for insects as well. This is time of year when many insects are most active. They are at their population peaks and working hard to expand their colonies. Hornets in particular rear their heads (and stingers!) in the summer. During the summer, we see hornets busily doing their construction work. They build their nests not only in trees, but often on man-made structures as well. We will find their perfect hexagonal chambers attached to soffits, inside garages, attics, on window sills and door frames, attached to exterior walls, and pretty much anywhere they can attach their nest “building materials.” Hornets make their own nesting material by mixing chewed-up wood pulp from tree bark mixed with their saliva, forming an enclosed nest around the comb where the queen lays her eggs.

Hornets nests can grow quite rapidly, with a surprising number of hornets living in what we would consider cramped quarters. Often, homeowners don’t even realize that they have a wasp infestation until the nest grows to a decent size, especially if the nest is formed in an area of the home or surrounding property that isn’t visited too often. Often, by the time a Cowleys tech is called out to the home, the nest has grown to the size of a melon. Once these guys get going building their nest, they mean business. Nest sizes can double in just a week!

These particular homeowners in Toms River, NJ called us after discovering a hornet's nest that was built, of all places, on the side of a raised playhouse in their yard. Fortunately, no one had yet been stung, but this was a potentially dangerous situation. Hornets usually don’t go out of their way to bother anyone. The problem is when someone unknowingly walks into the path of foraging wasps. With kids playing around this structure, there was a high risk of a swarm of wasps stinging children. This nest was not noticed immediately because it was built pretty high up on the playground— about twelve feet up a side wall of the structure. 

To treat this hornet infestation, I used an aerosol pyrethrin application attached to an extension pole to access the nest. After spraying, I waited for about 20 minutes for the application to take effect. This product immediately knocks down the wasp population, and after waiting, there were no more visible wasps swarming around the nest. Now, with a nest that was substantially inactive (of course, there could always be a few live wasps still hiding in the nest), I removed the nest with a scraper attached to the pole. I then bagged the nest to take it off the property. Finally, I treated the area where the nest was attached that would help prevent the Hornets from trying to reconstruct the nest. 

This type of stinging insect assignment is very satisfying to me. When finished, I knew that by removing this nest, I likely prevented some innocent kids from being attacked by a swarm of hornets just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Recently, I was called out to help homeowners in Toms River, NJ, who were having a troublesome mouse infestation problem. As temperatures drop, rodents will seek to overwinter inside our warm houses to escape the harsh outdoor elements. Their very survival depends on it. The objective for a homeowner is to eliminate potential entry points into your home so they go elsewhere. Mice will find the tiniest gaps, cracks, and opening around the foundation to enter the basement or crawl space and once inside, they have no problems traveling through wall voids throughout the home, usually winding up in the kitchen foraging for food debris.

Conducting a careful exterior perimeter inspection, I determined how the mice were getting in. Mice only need an opening around the diameter of a dime, so you have to be systematic and methodical, inspecting every inch of the perimeter. Here, I found holes in the crawl space vents and access door as well as spaces in the garage door jambs (the trim around the perimeter of the garage door that helps keep out insects and small critters. Because this trim is exposed to the elements, they are susceptible to splitting, rotting or warping, creating an opening for pest entry. I sealed the openings with an expandable foam, and also set up some rodent bait traps in strategic locations. I set up a two-week follow up to re-inspect and check the bait in the traps to determine the level of rodent activity. With the access points blocked and traps set, this mouse infestation should be quickly resolved.

As any roofer will tell you, terracotta clay-based ceramic roofing tiles can be challenging to work with. Although they are heavy and durable, if accidentally dropped or stepped on, these types of tiles can easily be broken. Terracotta tiles are installed by placing overlapping and interlocking rows of them on the roof. Although clay roofs are built to last and have been around long before asphalt shingles, repairing them can be a big hassle.

In order to access any tiles that are further up the roof from the eaves, you have to get to them without breaking any.  Because the weight of a person walking on the roof is more than enough to break these clay tiles, roofers often use boom trucks. When pieces have to be replaced, if the tiles are hooked over fasteners, you have to go under the piece and cut the fasteners since the overlapping tiles cover the fasteners. If the tiles are glued down, you may need a hammer and chisel. When I think of what roofers who work with terracotta tiles have to do, it makes me glad that I’m just a wildlife technician who only risks getting bitten or scratched by a nasty raccoon or sprayed by a skunk!

I was sent to a home in Belford, NJ to perform a wildlife exclusion along with one of our home improvement specialists. A wildlife exclusion is any project where we seal wildlife entry points (often on or around the roof) to prevent a re-infestation. With this home, raccoons were gaining access through a small area of a terracotta roof that had been damaged. According to the homeowner, this area had been previously patched, but the person doing the repairs failed to secure it properly leaving the gap vulnerable to wildlife.

We were asked by the homeowner to perform an exclusion to this area to ensure that any raccoons in the neighborhood stayed out. For this project, we measured and fit a piece of “trim cool,” aluminum fascia trim, in place that fit together like a puzzle piece. This trim blended into the roof, and just as important, was able to be secured correctly in order to prevent any wildlife access.

We often use trim cool to do repairs because of its flexibility. More and more, we are seeing fascia boards are covered with this product because of its resiliency to the outdoor elements. Homeowners don’t have to worry about peeling paint, wood rot, or wildlife gaining access to your attic by clawing their way through weakened wood.