Excluding Rats—closing entry points around a home—is essential to any professional’s approach to protecting your home.
Introduction to Rodent Exclusion
Mice have always been a problem in Boise and the whole region within and around Treasure Valley, Idaho. They can do plenty of damage to a home and they also spread disease.
And now rats have become an important problem. Along with their larger size and abilities, rats do even more damage to homes than mice.
Squirrels also nest in attics and ceiling spaces causing damage to roofs and insulation. Exclusion for squirrels is especially important when trying to avoid harming them in the process.
What is Rodent Exclusion?
Rodent exclusion is the process of sealing gaps and holes in a structure that are, or could easily be, entry points for rats, mice, or even squirrels. What’s troubling is how infrequent pest control companies in the greater Boise / Ada County area actually address rodent entry points in their service, especially when specifically addressing rats or mice.
Rodent entry points are often found as a gap around a crawlspace access door, a gap between siding and foundation, or where plumbing or wiring has been routed through the exterior wall.
Other locations at ground level include faulty foundation vents, or an ill-fitting garage door. Higher on the structure, we often find gaps where two angles of roofing meet. These points on the roof may leave a gap that is out of the weather so that rain won’t leak through, but rats and squirrels can still get in.
What’s important is that, rather than merely throwing poisonous bait and traps at them, your professional pest control company shows due diligence to locate rodent entry points (as humanly possible) and seal them.
Closing out rats or mice is a critical aspect of “integrated pest management” or IPM, which is the professional approach to pest control, limiting the use of pesticides and provided better control.
Rodent exclusion includes from stuffing a hole with steel wool to using hardware cloth or metal flashing to seal larger holes. Excluding for rats sometimes requires more extensive work to repair a structural deficiency.
Examples of Rodent Exclusion in Boise / Treasure Valley
The first two images show where steel wool was not adequately sealing a hole in a foundation vent and hardware cloth was installed behind the vent from inside the crawlspace.
The third image shows where a gap in the sill plate (mud sill) atop the foundation left a gap for rodent entry. Repaired with hardware cloth.
Following image shows where hardware cloth has been added to seal a faulty roof vent that was allowing rodents to enter attic.
Following images show a large faulty attic vent that was allowing rodent entry and our rodent exclusion solution.
Cascade Pest Control offers Rodent Exclusion services in the Boise / Treasure Valley areas:
- Boise Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Meridian Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Eagle Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Caldwell Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Garden City Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Nampa Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
- Kuna Pest Management – call 208-693-5228
