Rodent Exclusion and Entry Point Sealing in Altamonte Springs, FL

Trapping and treatment clear what is inside a home right now. Exclusion is the part of the job that keeps the next mouse or rat from simply replacing it, and it is the step most often skipped by a one-time treatment that only sets bait.

A mouse-sized gap is about a quarter inch, roughly the width of a pencil. A rat-sized gap is closer to half an inch, about the width of a thumb. Both sizes show up constantly on real houses: torn weep screed vents, gaps where a dryer vent passes through stucco, roof-to-wall joints that were never fully closed at construction.

• Stainless steel wool packed into small gaps rodents cannot chew through.
• Galvanized hardware cloth over vents, weep screed gaps and larger openings.
• Sheet metal flashing at roof-to-wall joints and gable vents.
• Mortar or cement patch on masonry gaps at the foundation.

A house rarely has just one entry point. The inspection that comes before sealing work checks the full roofline, every utility penetration, the garage door sweep, and the foundation line, because sealing three gaps and missing a fourth means the problem comes right back.

Central Florida does not get a hard freeze that drives rodents away for the winter the way northern states do, so exclusion work holds value any time of year here. That said, late summer and fall, when roof rats are most active moving from fruiting trees toward shelter, is when sealing pays off fastest.