Mike Cottom's Wildlife Removal

I called for a bat exclusion inspection. First, (which should have been a red flag) they insisted I give them my credit card information before the visit. The inspection was $399 plus tax. The cost of the inspection would go towards the cost of the service as long as I used them to bat proof the house. The technician who came out was Mike Cottom Jr. He got to my house on time. He talked to me for about 10 minutes to get the information about the history of bats in my house. He spent about 5 minutes taking pictures and came inside to look at the two access holes the attic the electrician made to run some wiring. He said he saw no sign of bats, a colony or an infestation, just a small amount of bat poop. Then he went to his truck for about 20 minutes to write up the quote. Then spend another 20 minutes going over what he found. In total, he was here for about 1 hour. He never got up on my roof, which is one of the most likely the points of entry. There are huge gaps on either side of my attic dormer where it meets the roofline. The quote for exclusion was $5643.88. The first line item was caulking where the chimney meets siding. He guesstimated that was 60 linear feet. the total for caulking that area was $630. It shouldn't take more than an hour, maybe two if you are really slow to caulk that area. I am a paint and home repair contractor who has been caulking peoples houses for 25 years. I know how long it takes because Ive done it 1000 times. He also had $1700 for sealing the corner trim of the vinyl siding. Basically, stuffing it with steel wool and spray foam. I dont live in a mansion. I live in a very typical 3 bedroom center hall colonial. He counted 20 sections of corner trim at $85 per section. Seriously. He also quoted $995 to rent a lift to seal the three sides where the roof meets the soffit. If the 4 th side has to be done from a ladder, why cant the other three be done that way as well? Also, I rent lifts for a living. Its more like $300. He had $795 to install one bat valve. Basically, that a tube bats can leave, but cant come back in screwed onto the place he thinks is the point of entry. It takes about 20 minutes to set up the ladder, go up there, screw in the pipe and put the ladder away. He has $1470 for installing 6 "animal patches" where the roof meets the soffit. Basically, metal flashing screwed and caulked where the roof and soffit connect. If he knows how to measure, its a 6 hour job at most to do all 6 spots. He also wanted $390 to bend some hardware cloth and attach it to my bath fan and kitchen fan. Again, a crazy amount of money for a job that maybe at most would take one hour. The list he gave me is a one day job for two workers. The worst part is that even after charging over 5 times what a reasonable contractor would charge in labor for the services they are providing, they don't even guarantee you will be bat free! They only guarantee that no bats will penetrate the work they did. So, if they missed a spot bats can get in, you are back to square one paying them even more money to seal the spots they missed in there already expensive initial evaluation. Save your money, call someone else.

Critical: Professionalism Caveat emptor! I had a squirrel make egress into my home. After reading reviews and calling for quotes, I had this company come out. I was told over the phone (I have handwritten notes from this call!) that an inspection would include setting traps for $239, and that animal removal would be extra ($95 per animal). Any repair work would be quoted and completed after animal removal, and that usually is around $95. Here I am thinking this might cost me $500 to $1000. BIG NOPE! The inspectors came out and found one point of egress, like I suspected, but about 20 additional things that they wanted to fix prior to capturing any animals. All of this added up to $4100, on top of the inspection and THEN additional money to trap and release the animals. Part of this $4100 quote was over $1000 in reinforcing a roof that I plan to replace soon. Why the heck would I do that? When asked point blank if the company could capture any animals prior to doing this work, they said no, that all of this was necessary before any capturing could be done. So they left without doing any actual remediation work. The company later sent me an invoice and the quote via email. I replied that I believed this interaction was a shakedown for money on unnecessary work, and never heard anything back. Unprofessional company. A decent company would work with you to find the best repairs for your budget and fix the problem, not leave you feeling like you paid $239 for nothing. Buyer beware.

Raccoons gained access to home interior. Cottom's Wildlife Removal surveyed situation, dug a trench around exterior deck, installed wire mesh barrier. Problem solved! Had woodpecker damage to siding. Crew filled holes, hung flashers as a deterrent. Mike Sr. and Mike Jr. very knowledgeable and professional. We couldn't be more pleased with the attention to detail and work performed. Would highly recommend Cottom's for wildlife control and removal.

I called and left messages twice with no call back. Don't waste your time calling this one. He obviously doesn't want your business.

Mike came out and set the traps. Within a few hours the first groundhog was trapped. Mike picked it up Saturday and reset the trap. Again within a few hours the trap had a live groundhog. I called right away. I've called twice and once to the emergency number. The groundhog has been trapped for over 28 hours. This is unnecessary and very cruel. Mike said he would come on Sunday if another groundhog was trapped but he is a no show.

I took work off to meet him at my house for a service call. He never showed up. I called on the day of our appointment, as well as a couple of days later. I have never received a call back. I never got an explanation of why he didn't show up. There is no way in the world I would hand money to this company and trust them to do anything. All I need to see was a no-show and no call back. AVOID.

At about 10:30 AM I heard an animal in my house, stuck between the floors.  I did not know what it was, but thought it might be a squirrel or something.  First I called a highly recommended exterminator and they could not help me or refer me to anyone.  So, I called the City animal control department and they referred me to Mike Cottom.  
Mike, Jr. came, diagnosed the situation.  He thinks birds have been in the attic and on fell and is now stuck.  We talked abut the solutions.  He inspected the outside of the building and found two places that could be the problem, adjusted both.  (It was poorly fitted soffit work where he thinks it got in.
I will report later if there continues to be an issue, but so far, so good.  He told me to call back if any further issues.  I have no comment on the price since I did not get estimates from multiple contractors and just wanted the situation fixed.  

Excellent was prompt courteous and reasonable. Followed with phone call.

We didn't really get a real good vibe from him and he had a weird attitude.

We had a raccoon who decided to move into our roof.  We set a trap ourselves but had no luck catching the critter.  We called Mike, who answered promptly and came to our house the same day.  He set a trap and advised us that he could also do any necessary repairs from damage done by the raccoon. He was very informative.  His trap worked that night.  Mike came the next day to remove the raccoon and reset the trap in case there were any more.  After a couple days of no more raccoons in the roof he sent one of his workers to remove the trap and repair where the raccoon had entered the roof.  We were very pleased with the service and would use them again.

It did not go well - He never returned our calls.

Our experience was less than satisfactory. We discovered bats in our attic. Another company got rid of the bats for us but did not do any cleaning of the guano or did not do anything to prevent the bats from returning. We called some places from the phone book and decided to have this person come out (Mike Cottom). He said he would do the work. In his discussion with us, he made it known that he was more interested in jobs that paid larger sums of money, such as claims that insurance companies would pay. On his advice we had our insurance company come out and assess the situation. Because we had a $500 deductible to meet, they only paid $297.53. He insisted that he had to install a one way valve so that any remaining bats could exit. He left that in place for a week or so. For this he charged $750; insurance would not even consider this. He cleaned up the guano and some other pesticides up there and put in new screen. (The old screen came loose and this is how the bats got in in the first place.) Subsequently, this screen had large enough gaps to let yellow jackets in and we had to fix that. He charged another $750 for this work. He (barely) put some flashing around up there; it was not securely in place. For what he called sealing the sides along the gutter, sealing the gable and eve pitches, he charged $500. Grand total = $2000.00. He did not caulk as he said he would. He left pieces of wood around in the yard and hand prints on the siding. We called him to complain about this and he said he would come back to take care of it. He raked up the wood pieces, but the day that he came it was raining and we were at work. He did not caulk or clean the hand prints. We were too frustrated to call him back again. We learned our lesson the hard way.

THEY LAID A TRAP AND WAITED ABOUT A 2 WEEKS. THE WOOD CHUCK IS STILL HERE. THEY WERE KIND OF RUDE. WE FELT LIKE THEY PUSHED US TO THE END OF THE DAY.

CAME OUT AND SET TRAPS. THEN WOULDN'T COME OUT TO GET THEM. WHEN HE FINALLY CAME HE ONLY TOOK THE TRAPS AND NOT THE WIRE AROUND THEM. I HAD TO PICK UP THE WIRE. HIS CLEAN UP WAS TERRIBLE AND I GOT RID OF THE SKUNKS ON MY OWN USING MOTH CRYSTALS.

DID LITTLE THINGS BEYOND SCOPE OF JOB. CAUGHT 2 ANIMALS, BUT DIDNT CHARGE FOR SECOND ONE VERY THOROUGH.