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Bought a house in July and put traps in the attic, catched 4 mice in about 2 weeks, 3 I got quickly within a few days, 1 after about 10 days.

I found a massive amount of holes in the brick below my porch (weep holes that are extra extra large) when I crawled there. The front of the mouse (where the porch is) has a mix of vinyl siding and brick.

I was a bit surprised to see fiberglass insulation under (not behind) my vinyl siding?!

Heres some photos : enter image description here

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You can even see in one of the pictures there seems to be a mouse tunnel inside the insulation!!

Does that insulation holds any value? It's in the way because I want to install metal lath under the siding (theres a wood 1x4 lumber under the siding close to the foundation where I can screw in the metal lath, but with that insulation I can't see properly where I'm drilling). The rest of the house doesn't have that, the 3 walls remaining don't have any insulation like that. Something tells me some previous owner put it in there... probably... I find this really bizarre.

Is it even safe? Would it not block proper water flow in case water gets behind the wall? Theres a membrane behind the wall, but still..

Any advice? Think I can just go ahead and rip/cut off that exposed insulation to install my metal lath?

Thanks!

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  • what did you do with the mice, as they are a part of larger colony
    – Ruskes
    Dec 18, 2022 at 6:19
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    They were killed in a lethal trap inside my attic (bucket of antifreeze with a RinneTraps(c) trap on top of it). The traps are still in the attic, near the attic access, to trap any other ones. I didn't get much (only 1 since 1.5 week) recently. I initially got mice in my shed in the summer. There are still mice there even in winter. I'll have to deal with the shed issue after the house is rodent secured. Also, vinyl siding corners were plugged with metal lath (opposite side of the house). Under the porch there are a lot of access points (including fairly large (1 inch) brick weep holes)
    – Yannick
    Dec 18, 2022 at 7:00

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Modern houses typically include a rainscreen with drainage at the bottom.

I'd just remove that insulation. Someone probably pushed it in there in an attempt to decrease drafts or possibly to prevent mice from entering. It doesn't look like it was done as part of the original build.

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