Rodent proofing that closes every dime-wide door in the structure

The survey walks the structure at rodent height and rodent logic: the full foundation line, every pipe, cable and conduit penetration, the sill-to-siding junction, window wells, crawl vents, the garage door's corner gaps and threshold, then up the rooflines where gable vents, soffit returns and the chimney chase give roof rats and squirrels their routes. Each opening is photographed and measured, so you see exactly what was found and exactly what closed it.

Materials are where exclusion jobs succeed or quietly fail. Rodent teeth defeat foam, caulk and plastic screening in a night, so our seals are built from quarter-inch hardware cloth, stainless mesh packed into penetrations, sheet-metal flashing at gnawed corners, mortar at masonry gaps, and commercial-grade garage door rodent guards, with sealant as weatherproofing over the metal rather than the barrier itself. Done this way, the work outlives the truck that installed it.

Exclusion earns its keep fastest on exactly the housing Belleville has. Pre-war brick and stone foundations carry a century of settled cracks and retrofit penetrations, original garages hang doors that no longer meet their frames, and the fall mouse push off the field edges finds every one of them each October. On these blocks, the choice is genuinely between sealing once and trapping every winter. Newer construction out toward Shiloh needs the lighter version, usually garage corners, dryer ducts and the builder gaps around utilities.