In Mont-Saint-Hilaire, on the South Shore between Beloeil and Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, the co-owners of a three-storey condo building built on the slopes of the mountain called on our team after several units reported nighttime noises in the walls and ceilings. Our technician’s initial investigation quickly established that squirrels and Norway rats had colonized the space between the concrete floor and the false ceiling of the common corridors, taking advantage of breaches in the building’s exterior insulation materials. Our caulking and exclusion program for condominium buildings has been deployed in compliance with the regulations of the condominium syndicate and the aesthetic requirements of the building.
Structural diagnosis of a condominium building
A condo building has particularities that complicate exclusion: quality exterior finishes (stucco plaster, composite siding, engineered stone panels) must be restored to their original state after any intervention, and owners have high expectations for visible finishes. The inspection revealed that the pests were gaining access mainly through two routes: a gap between the composite cladding and the concrete frame at the northeast corner of the building, where two façade panels did not meet perfectly, and several openings around the ventilation ducts of the individual air conditioning units installed in renovation after the original construction.
A follow-up inspection of the common areas, including the bicycle storage room and indoor parking, revealed holes in the concrete partitions around plumbing pipes and spaces under the service doors to the outside. The analysis of traces and droppings made it possible to map the corridors of animal circulation and to precisely identify the priority areas of caulking in the building.
Restoration of façade defects with matching materials
The façade work was entrusted to our technician specializing in caulking of collective residential buildings, working in coordination with a cladding contractor to ensure the visual compliance of the repairs. The space at the northeast corner of the composite cladding was filled with factory-tinted acrylic caulk in the exact shade of the panel, and then covered with a low-profile anodized aluminum cover strip that is virtually invisible from the outside. The openings around the air conditioners were fitted with custom-cut aluminium flanges, sealed with external polyurethane and mechanically attached to the concrete frame.
Inside, the concrete partitions of the parking lot were treated with structural repair mortar, tinted to integrate into the existing surface. The sills of the service doors have been equipped with frost-resistant nylon brush seals for the Quebec winter. To confirm the tightness of the thermal envelope and detect any residual breaches in the interior ducts, our team proposed a professional smoke test, which is particularly useful in a building where the spaces between the floors are large and difficult to access visually. The long-term management of the condominium involves integrating an annual inspection of the caulking into the syndicate’s maintenance book, in order to anticipate deterioration related to frost, UV rays and the natural aging of the sealing materials.
Coordination with the syndicate of co-ownership and annual follow-up
At the request of the syndicate council, all interventions were recorded in a building maintenance register, with photographs, descriptions of the materials used and contact details of the technician in charge. This register is a recommended good practice for any condominium building, as it allows you to trace the history of the work and facilitate future inspections or real estate transactions. An annual visit is scheduled each fall to check the integrity of the caulking materials before the winter season and the start of the fall rodent migrations. Our extermination team in Mont-Saint-Hilaire is available for any follow-up or urgent intervention in condominiums in the region. To discover other similar projects, see our caulking in residential buildings and our case study in co-ownership exclusion. By calling on Nova Extermination for your building, you benefit from recognized expertise in caulking and exclusion throughout the South Shore of Quebec.