Garage Door Seals, Sill Plates and the Shared Kitchen Wall

You need a flashlight, a pencil and a phone for photos. Close the overhead door and switch off the garage light. Let your eyes adjust for a minute. Then walk the perimeter slowly, looking for light that does not belong.

• Bottom edge of the overhead door: any daylight along the seal.
• Both corners: gaps where the seal meets the track.
• The walk-through door: threshold gap and worn sweep.
• Slab edge: cracks or pull-away where the wall meets the floor.
• Pipe and wire penetrations through the wall.
• Corners behind the water heater and the second refrigerator.

Anything a pencil fits into deserves a note. Photograph it with the pencil beside it for scale.

The overhead door seal is a rubber or vinyl strip that presses against the slab. Over time it curls, cracks or flattens, leaving a gap. A gap the thickness of a pencil admits a mouse, and a rat with time to chew can enlarge a narrower one.

The sill plate is the wood member that sits on the foundation. Where it meets the slab there may be a gap, especially after settling. If the wood is damp or rotted, animals can chew through it. A technician checks the sill with a flashlight and a probe.

An attached garage shares a wall with the house, and that wall carries pipes, wires and sometimes ducts. The cavities between studs connect the garage to the kitchen, the laundry or a bathroom. An animal that enters through a corner gap can move up the wall and appear in a cabinet.

If you hear scratching in both the garage and the kitchen, mention it on the call. The pattern tells the technician that the garage is the likely entry. The garage page explains how the whole space is checked.

• Use plastic tubs with lids on shelves rather than cardboard on the floor.
• Store pet food and birdseed in metal or thick plastic bins.
• Leave a hand's width between boxes and the wall.
• Keep holiday decor in hard-sided containers.
• Do not stack items against the walk-through door.

None of these will close a gap. They remove the hiding places and the meals, which makes the garage less appealing and makes signs easier to spot.

A refrigerator or freezer in the garage runs warm at the back, and the compressor area is a cozy place for a nest. Pull it forward when you can and look behind it. Check the drip pan and the base for droppings or shredded material. If you see signs, do not reach in; take a photograph and call.

The technician starts outside, with the door seal, the track corners and the foundation. Then the inside: the sill, the shared wall, the water heater and the storage. Findings go on a sketch and the estimate shows the gaps and the materials that close them.

Traps or stations go along the walls where the evidence points, and sealing follows when catches show which entries are live. The sealing page describes the metal and mortar-grade materials used.

Repeat the ten-minute check in spring and in fall. It takes no tools, and it catches seals that have aged and gaps that have opened. If you find something, a short call is enough to get a plan.