Animal Exclusion
There are many kinds of animals that want to make your attic and crawl space into their home! Bats, rats, mice, raccoons, opossums, otters, and birds of all kinds are the most common creatures that will try to inhabit your crawl space and attic. Animal Exclusion is the process of blocking off entry points that an animal can come through. Proper exclusion will ensure that animals are not able to enter your attic or crawl space.
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Animal Exclusion for the Seattle-Tacoma Area
The easiest ways animals can gain access to your home is through gaps, cracks, holes around your home, or improper screening on your attic and crawl space vents. Clean Crawls offers Animal Exclusion to protect your home from unwanted animal residents. Exclusion work is performed as an animal deterrent and is a vital part of effectively controlling animal infestations and re-infestation. However, exclusion work is not guaranteed to prevent rodents and other animals from re-inhabiting a home and by itself may not completely eliminate the problem.
Points of Exclusion
Gaps, Cracks, Holes, and Vents
There are many ways that a animal can get into your attic or crawl space. Mice and Bats can enter through holes the size of a dime and rats through the size of a quarter. Birds can also enter through small holes and gaps in your attic. Larger gaps or an incorrectly installed crawl space door or ventilation screen can allow larger animals such as otters, raccoons, opossums, rabbits, and even feral cats to enter the space. To protect your home from unwanted visitors, our Customer Service Representative will perform a thorough investigation, identifying those areas of concern.
What We Look For
Animals of all types can gain safe entry through cracks or holes, openings in vents, and through an unprotected foundation drain. Our Customer Service Representative will look at electrical and pipe penetrations, the foundation and framing, construction gaps, holes in the exterior of your home, as well as, the integrity of your ventilation screening and crawl space door. If we find places that a animal could enter through, we will seal it with concrete or screen the area with wire mesh.
Trench and Screen
If animals are burrowing into your crawl space, we are able to “trench and screen” around your home. This involves digging a trench around the exterior of your house and then running wire mesh from the bottom of your exterior wall to the bottom of the trench in an L shape. This helps to prevent rodents from digging under your home. Going on a population control program with a pest control company, in conjunction with trenching and screening, is an effective way of preventing rodents from inhabiting your crawl space.
What Kinds of Animals are in Your Attic and Crawl Space?
Bats
Similar to mice, bats have oily fur that allows them to squeeze through a crack or hole the size of a dime. Once you have bats in your attic, they will nest and stay in your attic all year round. When this happens, the urine and feces (guano) can begin to build up. This can be a serious health concern because bat feces can create odors and cause lung disease. Bats are a species protected under federal and state law, and removal requires a specific animal exclusion license.
Birds
Birds love to make your attic their home. They will bring twigs into your attic and build nests in your insulation. This can become a health problem for you and your family since the feces from birds can cause diseases. Birds will come back to the same place year after year, so be sure that your home has proper exclusion to keep them from making your attic their home.
Rodents
Once these unwelcome guests gain access to your home, they will make holes in your vapor barrier, damage your insulation, chew electrical wires and the wooden foundation of your home, as well as, defecate all over your crawl space and attic. Rodents will also gnaw on just about anything they can get their teeth on: insulation, beams, wires, furniture, air ducts, floorboards, and more. Beyond their destructive feeding habits, once they have entered your attic or crawl space, two rodents can produce a well over 1,000 offspring in a year. If not eradicated, rodents can cause severe and costly damage to your home.
Larger Animals
Since Clean Crawls started in 2001, we have seen all kinds of animals in our customers’ attics and crawl spaces. It is not uncommon to find large animals such as otters, racoons, opossums, rabbits and even feral cats in your crawl space. Similar to rodents, larger animals will create a comfortable living space by tearing up your insulation and chewing holes through your air ducts. Unfortunately, their larger size naturally means a much larger mess. If you have large animals in your attic or crawl space, dealing with these critters should happen as soon as possible to avoid any further damage.
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