Your deck is a very interesting structure. It can be open on the sides, fenced, or sealed completely. Either way, your deck is about to become a home to a skunk, raccoon or other wildlife animals that will proceed to use that deck as its home, latrine and a place to give birth to many more animals who will chew and rip apart your deck from the inside. So much damage could because the wood could break underfoot and cause you serious harm as one leg falls through your deck. If this is the case and you have an animal living under your deck making noise at night and damaging it then what you need is a deck exclusion. Exclusion is a word used by pest control technicians to represent the sealing off of entryways that animals could use to enter a home. This process is not usually cheap but can be the most effective treatment for rodents and wildlife. It can even be used to keep insects out of your home.
If you need a professional pest control inspection of your property, make sure to reach out to ANJ Pest Away for a thorough comb-down!
The first thing that needs to be done in an inspection of the deck. Look for existing entry points, damage to the fence, is it open or sealed off, can you see an animal or signs of one or do you just hear it? If this is for prevention then you need to think about what kind of animals you want to stop. To seal off the deck is still under threat from burrowing animals and a deck with a lattice can be easily broken or entered by smaller animals. These are the things you will need to think of as you decide how to seal and exclude the deck. Will you remove the lattice and put steel mesh behind it so it does not ruin the look of the deck or do you just need to trench around the deck and seal it off with steel mesh a foot into the ground. This can be a huge job and not knowing what you are doing can lead to openings you did not take into account. If you are serious about exclusion you need to hire a professional wildlife technician to inspect and seal your deck the commercial way. Taking into account every angle and opening they will seal your deck perfectly and provide you with a 2-year warranty of continued protection.
If this sounds like it will be expensive it will be, the price of exclusion is not cheap and takes a lot of work and knowledge. Learning all that knowledge will cost you more money and time than hiring a technician who can do it all in one day.