Wild animals see your home as a sanctuary. It’s dry, warm and offers the perfect shelter for them during harsh weather. These animals often find the dark and small spaces in your garage, attic, basement, and walls as an ideal new habitat, particularly if access to food is readily available.
Most places around your home can become common animal entry points for pests and wildlife. However, different points will host various pests and require various repairs to be sealed up.
Below are some of the most typical and potential entry points you might find and how you can address them to avoid future infestations.
Chimney
Bats, squirrels, and raccoons love this point of entry into your home. Cracks in your roof are not the only way these pests can enter from overhead. Some wild animals opt for a more direct route to your attic space, like the chimney. If an animal is pregnant it may even rip off a roof vent, to have a safe place to have its babies.
Fortunately, the easiest way to deal with this problem is to cover your chimney’s top with some fine wire metal mesh, or galvanized steel mesh. That covering will enable smoke to exit the fireplace without letting any pests in.
Dryer Exhaust Vents & Utility Pipes
If you have ever watched any old cartoons, you are familiar with the image of a mouse hole at the bottom of the wall. Naturally every home has a few entry points, but not in random spots like those in the cartoons.
Instead, insects and mice like to use dryer vents or the holes already cut in the wall for cords and utility pipes. To deal with these spots of entry, search for any places in your home where cables or pipes go into the wall or brick. Often, they have begun to crack or chip, leaving just enough space for mice or rodents to get in. You can utilize caulk to fill up the gaps around the pipes to stop any type of rodent from squeezing there way in.
Fill any additional holes with steel wool for an extra layer of protection if you are dealing with carpenter bees or other insects. You can keep it in place by applying caulk around the edges.
Warped Siding
Having vinyl siding outside your home presents a significant target for pest infestation. Wood planks, like board and batten may be 3x worse. Remember that brick has to crack to provide insects and pests a way in. However, wood can be chewed through and burrowed into.
Ants and termites are more likely to be the significant exploiters of this common entry point, basically eating their way inside. You would be able to see signs of chewing, drilling or burrowing on the outside of the wood exterior.
The ideal solution to this concern is to get ant control treatment from a professional. However, you can also search for holes in the siding and then fill them with wood filler.
For bigger holes, like those instigated by woodpeckers drilling for food sources, you can plug the entry hole with foam and apply the caulk. You can then paint the top.
Roofing
A typical issue with roofs is keeping them protected against water to stop leaks. However, a good rule of thumb is that anywhere water could get in through the roof vents, wildlife pests can too. They can easily squeeze through areas that have structural damage, and bigger holes are entrances for larger animals and wildlife intrusions.
Similarly you can keep out wildlife animals the same way you keep out water. You want to inspect the same areas a roofer would during an inspection.Things like your gable vent, flashings and air vents for signs of being tampered with.
You can apply a roof sealant around any cracks, but you may need slight repairs, both for your roof and for wildlife prevention strategies. If you are hearing noises at night from the attic, it might be time to call in an animal control specialist.
Garage
In most houses in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, people treat the garage as a go-between from the indoors to the outdoors. As sometimes, back garage entry doors are left open, that is a perfect opportunity to invite in wildlife animals. Especially if there is pet food or wet food available to eat. It the most common entry point for wild animal break-ins for squirrels, bats, raccoons, and mice. Best way to stop this kind of animal access is to install a security system, with door magnets, so you always know your back door is completely closed off to an animal invader.
Many garage doors have a gasket running along the bottom and weather seals down the sides. Pests like mice will often chew through weather stripping to get to warmth. Begin by double-checking the weather seals and gasket. Get some rodent guards to include at the bottom of the seals. Those are metal, so mice cannot chew through them.
Doorways
You don’t need to open your door for wild animals for them to utilize it as an entrance. Closed doors sometimes have gaps around the sides, or even “pet doors” leaving plenty of room for an actual animal to get through.
Some simple solutions exist for this issue, though. You can install a door sweep to keep anything from entering underneath your door. Look where your exterior door meets the door frame and search for any cracks between them when it is closed. If you have a pet door, and it becomes a problem consider removing it.
Crawl Space
Crawl spaces or foundation cracks show at the base of your home’s exterior. They can also appear underneath your house or under decks where you can’t always see them.
The most typical pests to enter through those openings are adult animals. There can also be signs of mice, especially when the cracks are big enough. Exceptionally big cracks may invite additional animals, which you should always try and cover up to stop any potential access.
To seal any foundation cracks, you can use a concrete patch that you can get at your local improvement stores. Applying the patch will need you to clean out the crack first, and fill the crack in with the mixed concrete. If you do find yourself face-to-face with something uninvited, you should never deal with wild critters but call a professional animal removal service for everyone’s safety. We even remove dead animals if needed.
Get Professional Control Service Today!
Implementing the above preventive measures can greatly keep wild animals and pests from your Ontario home. However, pests are often creatures of habit, so you want to be sure you have completely eliminated all entry points for new animal intruders. No matter what pest it is, you likely won’t have any enthusiasm to deal with it personally and for your safety shouldn’t handle wild animals.
ProTrap are your animal removal specialist and are here to help. As a professional pest control company, we provide both residential and commercial animal control services across Windsor, Chatham and Sarnia Ontario, Canada. Get in touch with us today to schedule a free inspection!
