Sunday, March 1, 2020

Dealing With Vermin

So after perforating a few squirrels I've finally worked up the confidence to try planting some plants behind the retaining wall again. We'll see how many survive being dug up and mangled.


And on the subject of vermin I also took the time today to finally deal with the rat hole in the corner of the roof where the addition meets the original house. It wasn't a huge issue but occasionally I'd hear some gnawing and scratching in the ceiling so I figured I should do something about it before it became a major problem. The tough part was where the hole was located. (This is technically the 'after' pic)


Basically it's under the soffits at the far end of some shitty sun-baked corrugated fiberglass. I couldn't exactly climb on top of the fiberglass because I'd get covered in fiberglass splinters and also fall through to my untimely death. Then I realized that there's a simple solution.


Yeah, just cut a hole. I still needed to extend the spray-foam applicator with some duct tape and a soda straw, but I managed to foam up the rat hole. I'm not sure if the foam will stop the rats, but at least it'll be obvious if they chew their way through it, and I have a nice convenient viewing port to keep an eye on things.

For the record I do have plans to replace this shitty awning at some point.

Since spray-foam cans are single use, I also went around the house and foamed up a few other spots that I'd been meaning to plug, mostly to keep bees and wasps from starting a nest. I'll go back around next week probably to trim off the ooze-out once it's nice and hard, and maybe splatter some paint over top of it to hide it.

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