COSTS: $185 for initial service, $65-$85 for follow ups, and typically $35-$85 per entry hole for exclusion work depending on difficulty. 

 

THE CAST: The Rodent Trapping and Exclusion Service stars Wilderness Security Guide. She’s a predatory care provider for her Portland-based territory, which features roof rats (aka tree or ship rats), Norway rats (aka street or sewer rats), field mice, house mice, and occasionally squirrels. She hunts and preys her wild creature friends in this service storyline, but Wilderness Security Guide is clear about her primary target. She hunts and destroys vile infestations, which often include her wild creature friends who have been tragically unweened by unintentional domestication.  

BLURB: All earth creatures have territories. We call our human territories Homefronts. This is a service storyline about how we can strengthen your Homefront by means of testing for activity; identify entry holes (aka breaches); discover where the rats are nesting, feeding, and running, and then perform the structural exclusion work that’s needed to secure and strengthen your Homefront while we clear your rats out, using our rat catching skills with good old fashioned traps.

Exclusion isn’t only the best way to prevent an infestation, it’s also the best way to clear an active one as well. Done strategically, exclusions (fixing vents, blocking tunnels, etc) will put environmental pressure on your rat population, which makes our traps all that more effective.  

Killing any wild creature with anti-coagulant/blood thinning poisons is always an inhumane way to end a life. Trapping is more humane but it has its drawbacks as well. We choose not to use bait poisons, because they’re not as effective as active trapping (in spite of what the Internet says, you have to be skilled to use poison property) and we feed our kills to our scavenger friends like turkey vultures, coyotes, and other critters on our farm. And we don’t want to spoil their meal.  

The Action of our exclusion based storyline for rats and mice usually goes like this…

THE INITIAL/SET UP SERVICE > We inspect your home inside and out and mark all the entry holes with bags, set many traps in active areas like attic voids and crawlspaces (we go where the rats go!), and then write you a custom action plan and proposal for clearing and securing your Homefront.  

THE INITIAL EXCLUSION SERVICE > We often do most of the exclusion work on the second service and leave the main entry hole open with a marker in it for an egress. If your home is very infested, we will often choose to wait until we gain full control before we do any exclusion work. Here’s a list of classic exclusions: broken vent screens (thanks Cable Guy and Air Conditioner Man), gutter line gap exclusions, structural entry holes under roof eves, and barrier exclusions for Homefronts with shallow (or no) foundation.

THE FOLLOW UP/TRAPPING SERVICES > We always say, “We learn the most about your infestation on the first trap check.” Our traps and monitors are our eyes and ears. Most of the generics like Orkin, The Killers, and Pointe (and generic green washed companies like Axiom, Adaptive, and Naturua) don’t do active trapping, because it requires skill and experience to read traps correctly…and that would require them to spend money on training their technicians, which rarely happens in The Industry. In other words, we know how to use our traps. Sometimes, when we’re really on our game, we can clear all the rats out one catch. Our one catch record for rats is 21; our one catch record for mice is 18.

THE FINAL EXCLUSION SERVICE > We don’t charge for trapping if we’re at your home to do exclusion work, so at least one of your follow-up/trapping services will be free.

THE END  > And that’s it! When we finally nail an ending to your infestation, we’ll leave a monitor (zip lock bag of tasty rat food) in your newly excluded and secured Homefront. Usually, we leave it just below the crawlspace hatch where you can check it easily. Checking the monitor for signs of activity will save you from having to pay us for reoccurring inspections.

Wilderness Security Guide is more than a cartoon character drawn to support our Storysold brand. She’s one of The World Stage’s original Environmental Control Operators. When you watch our human host Jake’s eyes light up–like “Jinkies!”–when we find the main entry hole and piece together the story of your infestation, you’ve met our live action character Wilderness Security Guide.

 

Here’s a few photos of local Homefronts from Guide’s perspective:

Rub marks in classic roof rat entry hole in NE Portland >

Many old homes get new roofs, but the new roofers don’t fit the sheathing to the old gutter line right >

Here’s how we block/exclude a concrete vent. One of our customers said The Killers told her that replacing a screen on a concrete vent was “impossible.” Then the tech foam turded it like they do >

We thought excluding these monster entry holes in the back of an accessible garage was impossible, but we found a way to keep the rats from nesting in the crawlspace! >

Making the fit around pipes is a challenge (especially in cramped crawlspaces), but it’s super important. >

Companies who do quality exclusion work are hard to find! If you want to know if you hired a company who does quality exclusion work simply ask the operator they send to your home to show you his tools. If all they have is a foam gun…run!

 

Exclusion of a shed with trenching, a mesh barrier, and refilling it with dirt and gravel. We exclude a lot of decks, double wides, and add ons structures built on pillars like this. >

 

One of our many custom creative crawlspace door creations. The door/bottom screen is fixed to the concrete with the black toggle screws, one of which you can see there. >

All exclusion work is custom work. There is no cookie cutter way to do it.