Joe recently reached out to us here at Wingman Pest Control after hearing persistent noises coming from his attic and inside his walls. Concerned about a potential wildlife issue, he requested an inspection to identify the source of the disturbance. I went out to his house in Howell on a Friday afternoon to conduct a wildlife inspection. While pulling into the driveway, I immediately could see multiple hotspots on the exterior open and accessible to wildlife.
Joe met me at the front door where I introduced myself. Once inside I started the interior portion of the inspection with a few standard questions such as what type of noises are you are hearing, where in the house do you hear the noises, and what time of day are you hearing theses noises. He told me he was hearing scratching noises in his attic and walls throughout the day, but at night he was experiencing sounds of running and jumping in his attic.
He then took me to his attic access point so I could look for any physical evidence to identify what he’d been hearing. The first thing I noticed in the attic space was small pathways and tunneling in the attic insulation. Looking closer at the pathways I could see mouse droppings on top of the attic insulation. Going deeper into the attic I began to see larger droppings in small piles throughout the space. I was able to identify the small piles of larger droppings as bat guano.
As I continued my inspection of Joe’s attic space, I started seeing small clusters of droppings, similar to the way a small mulberry would look, amongst the bat guano and mouse droppings. The small dropping clusters belonged to flying squirrels. At this point in the inspection, I was able to confirm that Joe had bats, mice, and flying squirrels in his attic space. After gathering all the information, I made my way back to the attic access and out of the attic space.
Joe was waiting for me, and I explained what he was hearing. With the interior inspection complete, it was time to move on to the exterior portion of my inspection. The exterior inspection allowed me to determine how bats, mice, and squirrels were getting into the attic. When inspecting the exterior of a house for wildlife, it’s important to look at every area on the structure where building materials meet. After identifying the safest roof access point, I set my ladder and began inspecting the roof. The first thing that caught my eye was the ridge vent. The ridge vent installed on Joe’s roof was made of thin plastic. Due to the extreme heat on the roof, the ridge vent was warped up exposing the gap cut in the roof decking for ventilation.
Once the ridge vent is warped it becomes an easy access for bats, mice, and squirrels to enter the attic space.
The solution for a warped ridge vent is the use of the product Ridge Guard. Ridge Guard is a heavy gauge steel mesh installed over a warped ridge vent preventing wildlife entry while maintaining optimal air flow. Joe had 234′ of warped ridge vent on his roof that needed Ridge Guard installed.
The next area I inspected was the “roof returns”. A roof return is a transition piece between the roof eave and the fascia board. Joe had a total of ten roof returns on his house. None of the roof returns had been sealed off when the roof was installed. Open roof returns are the most common entry points for all types of wildlife to enter an attic space.
While inspecting each roof return, I could see rub marks, signs of rodent chewing, and bat droppings coming out from the soffits onto the roof. It was obvious to me that bats, mice, and flying squirrels were frequently using the roof returns to get into Joe’s attic.
To get the animals out of the attic space our crew installed a combination of traps and bat one-way doors over the most active roof returns. Any roof returns that didn’t get traps set, or bat one-way doors installed were sealed off with custom made heavy gauge metal patches. Other areas I inspected on the roof that didn’t need any attention included fascia, soffit, siding, and drip edge intersections.
With the roof inspection completed I climbed off the roof and started to inspect the house below the roof line. There wasn’t too much going on below the roof line. After thoroughly inspecting the fascia, soffits, windows, and siding there were only two areas of concern that needed to be addressed. All fourteen of the siding corners were open on the bottom. Rodents and bats both will use open siding corners to access gaps in the framing of the house underneath the siding to get into walls. Occasionally siding corners will lead up the house and into the soffit which is an easy way for wildlife to enter the attic.
For siding corners our crew installs specialty guards made specifically to prevent wildlife access in siding corners. Other than the siding corners I only found one gap in the soffit where two sections met at an angle. To seal the gap in the soffit our crew installed a thin color match metal patch over the gap.
The last area that needed to be inspected was the foundation between the ground and siding. While inspecting the foundation, I found a total of three foundation gaps mice were using to get into the house. The small gaps on the foundation were sealed with a combination of heavy gauge metal mesh backing and a concrete repair caulk.
With the Wildlife inspection at an end, I went back to the door to talk with Joe about my findings and explain the solutions. Joe ended up signing up for the wildlife removal and sealing work.
Our wildlife crew caught a total of 12 flying squirrels in Joe’s attic. The team installed a total of 3 bat one-way doors. After roughly two or three weeks from the original service date, we returned to remove any remaining traps and all three of the bat one-way doors. Joe reported that the noises have since stopped and he hasn’t had any issues since. One more satisfied Wingman customer.
