Rodents can contaminate food, damage houses and spread diseases. They also breed at a high rate, so if you see one rodent, there are likely many more that you don’t even know about.
Rodent exclusion services help prevent future infestations by identifying entry points and creating barriers. We seal cracks, holes and crevices in your home, including A/C lines, vents, windows, doors, foundation, gable end vents and dormer pockets.
Sealing
Rodents are dangerous to humans because they spread bacteria and diseases, contaminate food, and cause damage to homes. They also reproduce quickly, leading to a continuous problem without preventative treatment.
Rodents may enter a home through an opening the size of a dime, making it important to inspect a property for weak points. An inspection begins with a thorough search for signs of rodents, such as droppings in closets and cabinets, scratching noises in the walls and ceiling, and gnawed food packages. A specialist can also locate areas that may have accessed by rodents, such as gaps in the foundation, ill-fitting doors and windows, open crawl spaces, and uncapped vents.
Sealing these entry points helps keep rats and mice outside where they belong, where they can’t contaminate food and damage the structure of buildings and homes. After locating and sealing these weak spots, experts can use gable and attic vent caps, chimney caps, and plumbing caps to further protect a home.
Orkin’s rodent exclusion services help eliminate existing infestations and prevent them from returning. Technicians can install tamper-proof bait stations and insect light traps to lure pests away from a building without exposing them to people or pets. These methods are effective for long-term rat and mouse control, especially when combined with a comprehensive cleaning plan. They can include sanitizing attics and crawl spaces, removing trash and debris, and providing a thorough deep clean.
Trenching
The best way to keep rodents out of homes is by making it impossible for them to get inside. Rodents are known to carry and spread bacteria and diseases that can make people sick, damage homes and buildings, contaminate food, chew on electrical wiring, and start fires. Exclusion services can prevent rodent infestations by identifying access areas and creating barriers to keep mice and rats outside where they belong.
Quality exclusion work requires a lot of time to seal all entrance points in a home. It takes a professional with good work ethic and maybe a little bit of obsessive compulsiveness to find and fill all the small cracks and entrance holes that mice can fit through. It takes much longer than tossing a poison packet in a mouse hole and walking away.
When digging or trenching, workers must follow proper safety procedures to avoid cave-ins. This includes calling a utility location service to mark any underground utilities before starting work, and sloping, benching, or shoring the trench to prevent it from collapsing. Also, workers must test and monitor the air for hazardous atmospheres, especially if they are in trenches that are more than 4 feet deep.
If you have old insulation in your attic, a wildlife control company can replace it with new, high-quality insulation to improve your energy-efficiency and indoor air quality. They can even help you apply for an energy-efficiency rebate from your local government if you qualify.
Bait Stations
Rodents are a nuisance pest that can cause significant structural damage to homes. They also carry pathogens like leptospirosis and hantavirus that can be transmitted to humans and pets via food contaminated with rodent droppings and saliva, or through bites and scratches from fleas and ticks that have picked up these diseases from mice and rats.
In order to reduce the risk of infestation, a thorough inspection must be conducted to identify and eliminate entry points into the property. This can include inspecting garages, basements and attics to ensure that there are no cracks, crevices or gaps where mice and rats may slip through. It can also involve looking for areas where utility pipes enter the home, such as those found in crawl spaces, and sealing any open gaps.
If these entry points are not sealed, bait stations can be used to capture unwanted pests before they make their way inside the house. Unlike traps, which capture rodents instantly, bait stations contain poisonous bait that draws mice and rats into the station. Once the rodents have consumed the bait, they will leave the station and usually die within one to two days.
Bait stations are often placed in the vicinity of exterior and garage doors, where mouse entry points can typically be found. To prevent children and pets from accessing the bait, these devices are designed with locks, seals or concealed latches to make them more tamperproof.
Insect Light Traps
Rodents can contaminate food, damage buildings, and cause fires by chewing through electrical wiring. They also pose serious health risks by spreading more than 35 diseases, including hantavirus and Salmonella. Humans can become infected by eating contaminated foods, handling live or dead rodents, breathing in aerosolized rodent feces or urine, or through fleas and ticks that feed on infected rats and mice.
Rodent exclusion services prevent these pestemite from entering homes and businesses. They start with a thorough inspection by your Thomas Wildlife Expert, who will identify potential entry points. These can include cracks, crevices, and gaps around A/C lines, vents, electrical wires, windows, doors, foundation, gable and attic vents, and chimneys. Your Thomas Wildlife Expert will use caulk or steel wool to seal these openings.
Mechanical traps are another important part of any rodent control program. Snap traps lure rodents in with bait before snapping shut, capturing them without releasing them. These are often placed along pathways where evidence of rodent activity is found. For larger buildings, insect light traps (ILTs) are installed in high-traffic areas like loading docks, trash staging areas, and near high-traffic personnel doors. These attract flies and other nuisance pests with ultraviolet lights inside a confined trap unit, where the pests can’t escape.
Orkin offers a nontoxic tracking gel that highlights rodent paths on virtually any surface. This allows your pest control technician to target and block entry and exit points with minimal rodenticide, resulting in more effective, safer, and longer-lasting protection.
