Wildlife Removal Before & After Photos

Cowleys was contacted by a homeowner in Ocean that had a groundhog problem. At least one pesky, destructive groundhog was burrowing under his backyard shed causing damage to the wood. Groundhogs (woodchucks) are one of the most damaging pests that can invade your yard. Besides wrecking havoc on your lawn from digging their burrows and leaving unsightly holes and mounds of dirt all over, they have voracious appetites. Groundhogs will feed on just about any flower, fruit, vegetable, or plant that you’ve been growing on your property. With a groundhog infestation, all that time and money your spent on improving your lawn can be gone in an instant. Also, groundhogs can also cause damage to your home’s foundation if their burrowing activity is right around your home. To make matters worse, once these large rodents have settled on your home as their new residence, they are amazingly persistent about staying there. 

I was dispatched to this Ocean residence to inspect the area around the shed and determine the best strategy to capture the animals. Upon arrival, I went to the homeowner’s backyard to inspect around the shed and observe the aftermath of their destructive behavior in the yard. The groundhogs were free to come and go from multiple areas around the shed. There was no clear pathway that they were taking to gain access under the deck. Rather than setting up traps in arbitrary locations and hoping for the best, I dramatically improved the odds of a successful capture by installing one of my favorite products in our wildlife control arsenal to trap burrowing invasive animals, “Dig DeFence” underground fencing. “Dig DeFence” is a trenchless underground permanent barrier made of heavy galvanized steel. It’s a much better alternative than burying hardware cloth or repeatedly setting up traps. It can be installed around foundations, decks, sheds, yards, and any other location where groundhogs and other burrowing animals are a nuisance.

For pet owners, this product is of great help as well. It can be used to keep your pets from trying to dig out of the yard underneath your above-ground fencing, and it works will all fence types — wood, wrought iron, or chain link. Especially for homeowners with next-door neighbor dogs that want nothing more than to sniff each other face-to-face, this below-ground fencing will keep them apart, hold your fence down, fill any gaps. Besides keeping your pets out, it will prevent a variety of unwanted “ground level” wildlife from entering your property and causing damage. It’s particularly effective for keeping out skunks, opossums, raccoons, porcupines, and, of course, groundhogs.

With this Ocean home, I used the “Dig DeFence” to aid in trapping the animals. I blocked about 90% of the perimeter around the shed so the animals would automatically be funneled towards my traps. I installed one-way traps by the remaining openings. I’m confident that that, within a day or so, the groundhogs will be trapped. Once they are caught, I’ll relocate them away from the home. After the groundhogs are trapped and there are no more underneath the shed, I’ll seal off the remaining areas. 

Living in a wooded area of Ocean, this homeowner will always be dealing with nuisance wildlife in his yard. It’s one of the tradeoffs of living with nature. However, this underground fencing will go a long way to prevent future problems. The homeowner was quite pleased that the groundhog problem around his shed would be permanently resolved and that he would not have to worry about repairing ongoing damage caused by these animals. 

A homeowner in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, had a few ridge cap shingles blow off in a storm. Virtually any steep-sloped roof has a ridge at the top of the roof where the different sides of the roof meet. Also. roof designs commonly have sloped ridges (hips) where roof planes meet at an angle. These ridges and hips the highest stress areas of your roof. We use ridge cap shingles to provide a complete watershedding system on your roof. These shingles are an extra strong barrier at this crucial juncture where rainfall first hits your shingles. Should these shingles go AWOL, it does not take long for rain or melting snow to start causing roof leaks and all sorts of property damage from water entry into your home. Also, these missing shingles are an “open house” sign for all sorts of critters that looking for a warm, protected place like your attic to escape the harsh outdoor elements.  

For this home improvement project, we replaced the missing shingles. We then installed Ridge-Guards over the ridge vents to give extra assurance to the homeowner that similar roof problems would not happen again. Just as ridge cap shingles are crucial to a home’s roofing system, so are ridge vents. These vents allow damp, warm air to escape from the attic. By doing so, they increase your homes energy efficiency and protect asphalt shingles from overheating and warping in the summer. Unfortunately, ridge vents can be a vulnerable “weak spot” in a roof. They are often exploited by wildlife, especially squirrels, raccoons, and bats, to gain entry into the attic, and they can be the source of roof leaks as well. With Ridge-Guards installed over the ridge vents, this homeowner now has an effective permanent solution to ward off these types of ridge vent problems.

Two members of Cowleys home improvement crew were dispatched to a home in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, to help a homeowner who had a few pieces of aluminum trim blow off during a recent storm. Your home’s siding and trim are an essential barrier to protect the underlying fascia from the harsh outdoor elements (wind, rain, and snow). If not repaired, fascia damage could lead to wood rot and a weakening of the underlying structures eventually causing the soffit to collapse. Exposing your home’s underlying building materials can also lead to other problems such as mold formation and wildlife entry. Wildlife like squirrels and raccoons often take advantage of structural weaknesses in a home to gain entry. Homes kept in good repair are less prone to wildlife infestations. 

We replaced the missing aluminum trim with new white high performance exterior cellular PVC trim that we custom bent to fit her home. This material is tough stuff! It won’t rot, cup, split, twist, or warp and pests like carpenter bees (not to mention woodpeckers that peck away looking for carpenter bee larvae) can’t bore holes into it.  As you can see by the photos, our installed trim blended in perfectly with the house. You could not even tell that any repairs had been made after we were done. The homeowner was relieved that the trim was replaced, it looked great, and most importantly, her home was protected from the outdoor elements as we head into the harsh days of winter.

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.

This homeowner in Fair Haven, NJ had several squirrels nesting underneath the solar panels on his roof! Since he had used our pest control service before, he knew we have a nuisance wildlife division and called our office. We were sent out to handle the squirrel problem.

A short while after setting up our devices we successfully and safely retrieved all the squirrels and took them to a safer location. Now we need to prevent them or any other nuisance wildlife from harboring underneath the solar panels. To accomplish that, we disinfected the area underneath the solar panels and then installed a solar panel exclusion kit around the entire perimeter of the solar panels! The solar panel exclusion kit creates a physical barrier to prevent the squirrels from accessing the area beneath the solar panels. This will protect the equipment from any future intrusions from all nuisance wildlife as well as nuisance birds!