Cowleys Pest Services Before & After Photos

Pigeons and seagulls can find landing spots on ledges and other areas of rooftops, especially on the Jersey shore. For this house in Beach Haven, NJ, the homeowners were having issues with nuisance birds making their roof the birds new home.

These birds were landing and roosting on the gutters, causing a mess. We installed bird spikes to deter these birds and send them elsewhere.

This story brings me to Pine Beach, NJ. Our professional inspector was called out to a house about the massive amount of birds roosting on this home’s roof. When we arrived, we found a lot of birds sitting on top of the roof. This evidently was a constant problem. After speaking to the homeowner, we proposed using Shock Track as well as installing a Bird Flasher on the pilings around her dock area where more birds were congregating. 

We installed Shock Track to the roof ridge. Shock Track is a great product that runs off a solar box, keeping it always active. It sends out a small zap to the birds when they land on it, teaching them that they no longer can use this home as a roosting spot. After we finished, we installed 10 Bird Flashers on the pilings. Bird Flashers give off an inferred flame that only the birds can see.

We showed the home owner the exclusions we installed and she was extremely happy and “shocked” as well to see how fast our job worked. We followed up with her after a couple days and she was happy to say that no birds are on her roof.

I was dispatched to a home in Lanoka Harbor, a Lacey Township community, just north of Forked River. The homeowner had contacted Cowleys to take care of a flea problem in the home’s mechanical room that housed the HVAC equipment. Also, he asked us to replace the rotted plywood doors and wood framing used to access this small space located in the rear of the house. Many Cowleys technicians have extensive backgrounds in home repair and improvement, especially those of us assigned to either the Crawl Space Solutions By Cowleys Division, which specializes in helping homeowners resolve water, moisture, and high humidity problems in their crawl space, or our wildlife division where critter infestations are often accompanied by damage to insulation and other building materials.

As temperatures drop, mice will seek refuge in your home to escape the harsh winter elements. For a mouse, your home is paradise — it’s always warm and cozy, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to hide, there’s plenty of nesting materials,  and your kitchen offers an unlimited food supply. , 

Whenever we are called out to resolve a rodent infestation, we not only treat the infestation. It is critical to determine how these disease-carrying animals are accessing your home. Here, in this home in Keansburg, I determined that mice were gaining access through gaps around AC lines entering the home. Utility and telephone lines entering your home to are common access points for small rodents like mice and they are always on the top of my “must inspect” list. A small gap around wiring or pipes that we easily overlook is, for a mouse, a wide-open entrance way that offers 24/7 access  into your home. Unfortunately, because of their diminutive size, mice can slip through the smallest of gaps and cracks, and these openings can sometimes be a challenge to find. I set up traps in the home and sealed the entry point to prevent further access. These pictures show the “before and after”  sealing of this entry point.

I’ll be returning for a follow-up visit in two weeks to make sure that these overwintering mice are gone for good. 

Some wily squirrels were able to successfully deceive a previously hired nuisance wildlife serve at this Keansburg, NJ home and escape capture. Apparently, the technician focused on looking up and over the roof of this home for potential access points to try and keep the squirrels out. To be sure, squirrels are arboreal rodents and they often initially access the home by first making their way to the roof, usually by either by traversing wires coming into the home or using overhanging branches as a roadway. However, squirrels don’t always access the home through the roof, fascia, or  soffits. Good wildlife technicians have 360 degree thinking and look at the entire picture, always taking into account every possibility.

I first asked the homeowner where she was hearing most of the wildlife activity. This often gives me a good starting point of where to start the inspection for entry points. She told me that most of the noise was coming from inside the wall voids of the first floor — nowhere near the roof or attic. Based on this, I decide to first inspect below rather than above. Sure enough, these squirrels were gaining access to the home behind the plaster walls of the living room from below the front porch.  

The best course of action was excluding them by setting up a one-way device over the opening that allowed them to leave the home, but prevent their return. For the rodents, it’s a one-way trip! After sealing this area and monitoring it for activity for two days, we sealed the opening for good.  We followed up with the homeowner who told us that she’s heard absolutely nothing in the walls after our exclusion. These squirrels were permanently evicted. Needless to say, after a few too many weeks of frustration, she was quite relieved that her squirrel problem was finally resolved.