We’ve done it! The mesh is installed and our barrier is complete. This project was a literal pain in my a*& but now that it is done, in retrospect, after lots of swearing in the moment, it doesn’t feel like it was that big of a deal. …But first the backstory.

Our house is basically sitting on a deck. You can read a bit more about it’s construction here. What loves to hide under a deck? Animals. Especially when that deck has a concrete curtain (not foundational blocks you are looking at there, just a skirting) and heat. It’s a rodent paradise. When we had tried everything we could think of, and I had finally gotten rid of the rat and didn’t want any more, I called Gary Ure at Second Nature Wildlife Removal. He was highly recommended by some neighbors and by us as well. He came and took a look around and laid some traps to see if he could figure out what the favorite routes were. To start he recommended we move the compost away from the house, which we did.

His summary of our situation… “well since your house is kind of like a shed (sheepish look, no surprise to us) I’m going to recommend what I recommend for sheds”. Basically you sheath the outside of the house in dense wire mesh (galvanized steal and used for outdoor plaster applications mostly). The mesh is attached to the foundation – since we don’t have one I screwed it to the wood the siding is mounted on – easier because I didn’t have to drill pilot holes into the concrete. I used screws and washers to make sure it “held” onto the mesh. The mesh is folded at 90 degrees at the ground, no need to dig, and then covered with a light layer of dirt or gravel. Turns out the beasties aren’t very smart and are going to always dig where the house meets the ground. Even though they could go out 6 inches and dig right under the mesh they don’t. Six inches away from the house they feel exposed. So when they dig in a couple of places and find the mesh barrier they give up and go somewhere else.

We also cut back all the grass from around the house so there was no where for them to hide while they dug, and I ordered some gravel and we laid a 10 inch gravel border around the outside of the house.

Gary will do this job for you – but he very kindly showed me how to do it for a very reasonable fee and then I did the work myself. Hence the pain in the a*&, particularly in the portion under the deck. That was NOT fun.

As I was installing the mesh I also filled in any obvious holes. I found a couple of REALLY big holes, especially under the deck; like racoon sized holes. (We never saw a racoon but I am pretty sure we were housing the very fat ground hog I’ve seen around). Time will tell but I’m feeling really hopeful that I won’t be cleaning up poop from the house.

Edit…. Two years later, it’s working. Not perfectly, there are still the odd small mouse in the crawl space, but we haven’t had any big animals and no rodents in the house that I’ve found. The mesh is holding up well and I only have had to reattach it in a few place. For what it cost (around $400) a rousing success.