Seasonal buildings get colonized because nobody is watching
The Chain O’ Lakes country around Iola is full of cottages, cabins and seasonal homes, and from a wild animal’s point of view those are close to ideal: sheltered, structurally imperfect, and undisturbed for eight months of the year.
That is the whole difference from wildlife work on an occupied house. In a year-round home somebody hears the first scratching in week one. In a cottage, a colony can establish across an entire season and be discovered all at once in May — larger, more established, and with more damage behind it.
Bats are the main event here
Older cottages have what bats want: open soffit returns, unscreened gable vents, lifted flashing, and the seams where a porch or an addition meets the original roof. A bat needs about a finger’s width.
The awkward part is the calendar. Wisconsin protects its bats, and exclusion is prohibited during the summer maternity season while flightless pups are in the roost — which is precisely the stretch when you are at the cabin to notice them. So a July discovery usually means:
- A full inspection now — finding every exit, sizing the colony, planning the seal.
- The exclusion booked for the first legal date.
Sealing during the closed period traps flightless pups inside your ceiling. They die there, and what you are left with is an odor and insect problem in the insulation for months, on top of having broken the law. We will not do it, and we will explain why rather than just refusing.
Detail: the Wisconsin bat exclusion law guide and why you cannot evict bats in June and July.
The good news on bats is that they do not chew. Unlike rodents, once a gap is properly closed it stays closed — so cottage bat exclusion holds well once the finding work has been done thoroughly.
The rest of what turns up
Squirrels — scratching and rolling at dawn and dusk. Worst in seasonal buildings because they have months of undisturbed chewing, and the wiring is the part that matters. Chewed insulation on a conductor in a building nobody is watching is a genuine fire risk.
Raccoons — heavy deliberate movement after dark. Chimneys, soffits, and under decks and cabins. Strong, destructive, and likely to have a litter behind them in spring.
Skunks, groundhogs, and occasionally porcupines — under cabins, decks and sheds. Look at the opening before closing it, particularly in spring.
Flying squirrels — more common on wooded lots than people realize, strictly nocturnal, and communal in winter, so it is rarely just one.
Identification by sound: reading the noise before you call anyone.
What a job runs through
Inspect from the outside first — the entry is found by reading the roofline and the sign around it, and on a cottage there is usually more than one. Identify species and season, because that decides what is legal and humane. Get the animals out, usually with one-way devices so they leave on their own and cannot return. Confirm the space is empty before anything is closed. Exclude with hardware cloth and flashing, mechanically fastened, along the whole roofline rather than at the one hole. Then clean up what needs it — and say plainly when it does not, because not every attic needs restoration and you should be wary of a quote for one written before anybody looked.
Why a pest company is doing this at all
Most are not. The majority of pest control companies treat insects and rodents and refer wildlife out, or decline it. Out in this part of Waupaca County there is frequently nobody to refer to, so we do both halves — and on a lake property that matters, because the bats in the attic, the mice that got in over winter and the wasps under the deck are one building and one visit rather than three contractors.
Also in Iola
- Residential pest control — the opening-and-closing rhythm that seasonal property actually needs.
- Bats in Iola.
- The full Iola service page.