Cowleys Pest Services Before & After Photos

Recently, I was called to a home in Asbury Park, NJ to handle a mouse infestation. As often happens this time of year when temperatures drop, mice seek refuge inside homes. Here, the homeowner found two common signs of mice — droppings and noises in the wall voids. Mice are nocturnal and do their foraging in the quiet of night. Often, the mice stay hidden but leave a trail of droppings behind. Here, the homeowner told me that he found droppings in their bedroom closet.

During me inspection, I found a trail of droppings along the bedroom baseboard heaters (mice are attracted to anything generating heat) leading to the bathroom. I also found mice were chewing up pieces of toilet tissue paper and the cardboard rolls and using it as nesting material. Whenever dealing with a rodent infestation, it is important to determine their entry points into the home and how they are able to move about once inside so that their access points can be sealed. Here, I found that there were gaps around the water pipelines into the bathroom, which explains why the homeowners had heard noises inside the wall voids. I sealed the gaps around the pipes using expanded foam resin and installed interior rodent bait stations in the bathroom. With the bait stations and access points sealed, these homeowners will not have to worry about mice scurrying about their bedroom and bathroom.

After hearing about the numerous benefits of using blown-in cellulose insulation, this homeowner in Asbury Park, NJ called our office and wanted us to insulate his attic.

After a thorough inspection, we noticed that not only was the current insulation insufficient, but the insulation was damaged and contaminated as well! Apparently, the homeowner had purchased the home a few months ago, renovated the attic, and used the same insulation that was previously installed. During the renovation period, the insulation was damaged and contaminated by the various materials that were used.

An attic that doesn't have the proper insulation will keep your heating and cooling systems working overtime, which in turn, will increase your utility bill. We removed all the current insulation, vacuumed and disinfected the attic, and added over 10 inches of TruSoft cellulose insulation. TruSoft fills the attic to its recommended insulation levels, won't compress, is eco-friendly, and  is treated with non-toxic borate which gives it the highest Class-1 fire safety rating and creates an incredible resistance to mold & pests!

This homeowner in Wannamassa, NJ, was having an issue with wasps nesting in her gable vent. After our pest control team had safely and effectively exterminated all the stinging insects, I was sent out to exclude all the gable vents. The gable vents were weathered and wide open, which makes them vulnerable to a pest, nuisance wildlife (such as squirrels, raccoons, and bats), and bird infestation. 

In order to prevent this, I properly excluded all the gable vents around the home with some sturdy material. Now the gable vents are 100% excluded from pests, birds, and all nuisance wildlife. 

Two members of Cowleys home improvement crew were dispatched to a home in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, to help a homeowner who had a few pieces of aluminum trim blow off during a recent storm. Your home’s siding and trim are an essential barrier to protect the underlying fascia from the harsh outdoor elements (wind, rain, and snow). If not repaired, fascia damage could lead to wood rot and a weakening of the underlying structures eventually causing the soffit to collapse. Exposing your home’s underlying building materials can also lead to other problems such as mold formation and wildlife entry. Wildlife like squirrels and raccoons often take advantage of structural weaknesses in a home to gain entry. Homes kept in good repair are less prone to wildlife infestations. 

We replaced the missing aluminum trim with new white high performance exterior cellular PVC trim that we custom bent to fit her home. This material is tough stuff! It won’t rot, cup, split, twist, or warp and pests like carpenter bees (not to mention woodpeckers that peck away looking for carpenter bee larvae) can’t bore holes into it.  As you can see by the photos, our installed trim blended in perfectly with the house. You could not even tell that any repairs had been made after we were done. The homeowner was relieved that the trim was replaced, it looked great, and most importantly, her home was protected from the outdoor elements as we head into the harsh days of winter.

A homeowner in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, had a few ridge cap shingles blow off in a storm. Virtually any steep-sloped roof has a ridge at the top of the roof where the different sides of the roof meet. Also. roof designs commonly have sloped ridges (hips) where roof planes meet at an angle. These ridges and hips the highest stress areas of your roof. We use ridge cap shingles to provide a complete watershedding system on your roof. These shingles are an extra strong barrier at this crucial juncture where rainfall first hits your shingles. Should these shingles go AWOL, it does not take long for rain or melting snow to start causing roof leaks and all sorts of property damage from water entry into your home. Also, these missing shingles are an “open house” sign for all sorts of critters that looking for a warm, protected place like your attic to escape the harsh outdoor elements.  

For this home improvement project, we replaced the missing shingles. We then installed Ridge-Guards over the ridge vents to give extra assurance to the homeowner that similar roof problems would not happen again. Just as ridge cap shingles are crucial to a home’s roofing system, so are ridge vents. These vents allow damp, warm air to escape from the attic. By doing so, they increase your homes energy efficiency and protect asphalt shingles from overheating and warping in the summer. Unfortunately, ridge vents can be a vulnerable “weak spot” in a roof. They are often exploited by wildlife, especially squirrels, raccoons, and bats, to gain entry into the attic, and they can be the source of roof leaks as well. With Ridge-Guards installed over the ridge vents, this homeowner now has an effective permanent solution to ward off these types of ridge vent problems.