In Saint-Basile-le-Grand, on the South Shore between Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Beloeil, the administration of an elementary school mandated our team following the discovery of rodent tracks in the technical room adjacent to the cafeteria. The presence of pests in a school is a situation that requires a rapid reaction and a lasting solution, as the health, regulatory and media consequences can be significant. Our response plan combined a comprehensive exclusion assessment and a certified professional caulking program to permanently eliminate the building’s access routes.
Assessment of the envelope of a school building in the 1970s
The school, built to 1970s architectural standards, is a single-storey concrete and brick building with a flat roof and large glass surfaces. This type of construction often has numerous expansion joints, abundant piping in slabs and walls, and large ventilation systems. The exhaustive inspection carried out by our technician highlighted the following critical points: expansion joints between the wings of the building with gaping spaces of several centimetres, uncaulked heating pipe passages in the technical room, ventilation grilles on the underside of the roof with rusty or no mesh, and several spaces under the exterior access doors that are insufficiently adjusted.
Inspection of the cafeteria and its delivery area revealed that the kitchen service door had significant play under the bottom and sides, and that the exhaust duct of the range hood was not properly sealed to the roof penetration. Both of these points were direct pathways for rodents attracted to food odors. The inspection also included the exterior surroundings: several shrubs were planted directly against the walls, and two storm manholes had ill-fitting covers that facilitated underground access.
Exclusion work in a certified school environment
Given the presence of children, all work has been planned to be carried out outside school hours, mainly in the evenings and on weekends, to minimise disruption and avoid exposure to dust or odours of the materials. The expansion joints were treated with a commercial-grade elastomeric polyurethane sealant, applied to the bottom of the joint with a backer rod rope of suitable diameter. This technique guarantees a hold of several decades without cracking or peeling under the effect of Quebec’s intense thermal cycles.
The underside ventilation grilles have been replaced by extruded aluminium models with integrated stainless steel mesh with a six-millimetre mesh. The pipe penetrations in the technical room were treated with steel wool and polyurethane sealant depending on the size of the gaps. The kitchen service door received sealing strips on three sides and an automatic door threshold, while the hood duct was fitted with a soft lead sealing collar with EPDM seal. Long-term preventive management involves a port of entry closure plan reviewed annually with a certified technician, taking into account renovation or expansion work that may create new openings.
Documentation for the school board and regulatory follow-up
A complete intervention report, including before and after photographs of each point treated, the list of materials used with their technical sheets, and a recommended follow-up schedule, was given to the management for transmission to the school board. This document is essential to demonstrate the institution’s compliance with the health requirements of the MAPAQ and the Ministry of Education. The follow-up visit carried out six weeks after the work confirmed the absence of any rodent activity in the building. Our extermination team in Saint-Basile-le-Grand is experienced in institutional interventions on the South Shore. Consult our caulking in institutional buildings and our case study in school exclusion for other concrete examples. Trust certified exterminator on the South Shore and South Shore to protect your schools in a sustainable and fully documented way.