Rodent Proofing & Pest Exclusion
in Cloverdale, BC

Cloverdale is one of Surrey's oldest communities, with a historic town centre that predates the modern municipality. The residential areas around the historic downtown and extending into the surrounding rural fringe have housing stock that spans from early 20th-century farmhouses to contemporary subdivisions, but the most common crawlspace problems we encounter are in the mid-century stock from the 1950s through the 1970s. These homes were built with vented crawlspaces on soils that are a mix of silty loam and clay — reasonable in dry periods but slow to drain after the extended wet seasons typical of the Fraser Valley.

Rodents find crawlspaces attractive for the same reasons moisture does well there: it's dark, protected, relatively warm, and — in homes without proper exclusion — easy to get into. Rats (particularly Norway rats, common throughout Surrey and the Fraser Valley) and house mice can squeeze through gaps as small as a quarter-inch. They enter through uncapped foundation vents, gaps around utility penetrations, deteriorated sill plate joints, and even through the condenser lines of HVAC systems if protective screens are missing or corroded.

Our rodent-proofing process starts with a perimeter audit: we walk the exterior of the foundation looking for every possible entry point, then we move inside the crawlspace to identify any gaps that weren't visible from outside. Foundation vents are fitted with heavy-gauge galvanized steel mesh or replaced with sealed covers. Gaps around plumbing and electrical penetrations are packed with stainless steel wool and sealed with caulk or foam. Damaged sill plates are repaired. If the foundation vent openings are large or irregularly shaped, we use pre-formed steel exclusion panels rather than flexible mesh, which rodents can push past over time.