Cowleys Pest Services Before & After Photos

This homeowner in Highlands had wildlife gaining entry into his attic through a gable vent. The wire mesh screen covering the gable vents was damaged, most likely from the animals themselves. With the screen breached, they were able to gain access into the attic.

Homes are equipped with attic vents to provide efficient ventilation. They allow heat and humidity to escape from the attic in the summer and moist air in the winter. You’ll find vents on the underside of your soffits and on the home’s gables, which are the triangular portion of the outside wall of a house that comes to a peak between the edges of the intersecting roof pitches. Homes with a simple gable roof (two roof sections sloping in opposite directions that meet at the roof ridge), typically have gable vents at the two ends of the house, and sometimes over the garage. Homes with more ornate roof structures with multiple gables usually have multiple gable vents. While these vents are necessary for efficient attic ventilation, they often wind up being the “weakest link” in the roof structure for wildlife to gain access. Time and time again, our wildlife technicians have had to deal with infestations with wildlife that used a gable vent as their personal welcome mat to enter the attic. Once inside, wildlife can cause significant property damage. They can ruin expensive insulation and chew through wires, creating a fire hazard, and their droppings are a serious health hazard.

Two members of Cowleys home construction crew were sent in to do the exclusion work and make sure that, going forward, wildlife would be blocked from trying to re-enter the attic through this vent. We carefully removed the damaged screen and installed a new one.

This customer in Ocean Grove, NJ had a rather unique situation - pigeons were nesting inside his chimney and making a huge mess! So we were sent out to safely remove them. In fact, a short while after setting up our retrieval devices, we were able to safely remove them from the home! We then carefully disinfected the chimney.

Although the pigeons were safely removed from the home, the chimney is still vulnerable to infestations from other nuisance birds and raccoons too. To solve this, we installed a chimney cap! This heavy-duty material is constructed out of 24 Gauge Top and Flange, and 18 Gauge Galvanized Mesh! It is designed to prevent access to the chimney from all nuisance birds and wildlife!

Previously, we successfully and safely retrieved a squirrel from this customer's home in Deal, NJ. What had happened was the squirrel had chewed right into the wooden fascia board and made their way into the property! Now that the squirrel has been removed safely, we disinfected the area and began our exclusion process!

We fashioned a piece of sturdy metal flashing and installed over the damaged area of the fascia board. This is going to exclude squirrels, as well as other nuisance wildlife, from gaining access into the home through this area.

Recently, I was dispatched to a home in Long Branch, NJ that was plagued by mice. Vermin were running around the basement and first floor of the home as if they owned the place. And based on the level of infestation, I have to admit, they temporarily had the upper hand!  But now that I was here, it’s game over for these rodents. 

Mice are overwintering pests that make their way into homes as outdoor temperatures drop. They can potentially contaminate food and leave droppings wherever they go. Mouse and other rodent infestations pose a serious risk for transmitting Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) and other serious diseases. HPS is an infectious disease that starts with flu-like symptoms and can progress to life-threatening respiratory problems. Any activity that puts you in contact with rodent droppings, urine, saliva, or nesting materials can place you at risk for infection. Also, when mouse droppings dry and are disturbed, particles can become airborne and you can actually breathe them in. That’s why you never want to go into a small enclosed area where there is a rodent infestation without proper personal protective equipment like HEPA masks.

Mice tend to enter homes through access points in and around the foundation to get inside the basement or crawl space. Once there, they use wall voids to speed throughout the house, usually finding their way to the kitchen because of all the food attractants. Since mice are so small, there are often many entry points we are unaware of. They only need an opening about the size of a dime to make their way in. As such, they can easily squeeze their way inside through gaps and cracks in the foundation. Also, I’ve seen many homes where the mice have run along the sill plate until they find gaps around piping entering the home, such as a gas pipe behind the stove or water lines under the kitchen sink. 

During a rodent inspection, I generally start with the kitchen since this is their usual target destination. I then work backward to see how they are gaining access to the kitchen. With this home, after inspecting the kitchen for evidence of mouse activity, I moved to the basement where the homeowners had noticed most of the rodent activity. I inspected the entire home and even found mouse droppings in the attic, indicating to that mice had made their way throughout every floor of the home. 

While baiting for mice in the different areas of the home, I noticed daylight by the sill plate in the basement right by some wires. If daylight can shine in, it’s a good indication that there is enough of an opening for mice. A mouse can enter a home through a hole as small as the diameter of a dime. Since mice don’t have collarbones, if a mouse is able to poke its little snout through a hole, the rest of its body will follow. Upon further inspection, I found a large hole in the foundation — a hole large enough for a rat to enter let alone a tiny mouse. Someone had stuffed the hole with a rag. With the teeth and claws of a rodent, a rag would do absolutely nothing to deter a determined mouse or rat from getting into the house. I stuffed the access hole with chew-proof copper mesh to block any more rodents from entering. With the bait stations set up throughout the home, it will not take long for the rodent population to substantially decline. The objective, of course, is to get the rodent population down to zero. One mouse roaming around a home is one mouse too many!

I scheduled a two-week follow up to reinspect, replace the bait in the stations as needed, and determine if additional bait stations are necessary. With a heavy mouse infestation, it is important to have successive follow-up visits until there is no more observable rodent activity. 

A homeowner in Long Branch, NJ, recently purchased a home and while walking around the exterior perimeter, found something missing that was quite important — a cover over the crawl space entry. He knew that it would only be a matter of time for mice and other pests to access the crawl space and the opening was a major problem for letting in hot humid air. He knew that Cowleys did a wide variety of crawl space repair and improvement work and contacted us to see if there was anything that we could do. 

Cowleys had the perfect product: An Everlast cover that our contractor crew could easily custom fit to completely seal his crawl space access. 

These covers are custom provide a perfect seal for most any crawl space opening. 

They can be installed against wood framing or masonry, work exceptionally well, and look great. These doors,  made of a hard durable plastic, stand up to New Jersey’s worst weather and keep out mice and other pests. These crawl space covers are far superior in performance to wooden or metal doors since they can’t rot, warp, crack, or rust. As a bonus, they never need to be painted. Also, even though these covers form a tight seal over the crawl space access, they are easy to open with four easy-to-grip knobs. Just twist them off, and you’re in!  

This Long Branch homeowner could not have been more pleased.