Southwest Florida · Family Presentation

It's a House
Problem.
Not a Mouse.

Smart homeowners fix the building. Pest companies sell you the poison. Learn why those are two very different things — and which one actually works.

🔧
Paul Trapp
Owner · Seal Em Out LLC · 25+ Years Experience
🔬
Brittany Piersma
Wildlife Biologist · Audubon Western Everglades
SEAL
EM
OUT
🦉 55 of 59 owls tested positive for rat poison
🐢 1,300+ tortoises on Marco Island
📉 60% rat reduction — NO poison
02 / 10
Who We're Protecting

Florida's wildlife needs your help.

These amazing animals live right here in Southwest Florida. They're our neighbors — and rat poison is hurting them without anyone realizing it.

🦉
Burrowing Owl
Florida Special Concern

These little owls nest in the ground in parks and neighborhoods — right where rats live. They eat rodents for free! But when rats are poisoned, the owls eat the sick rats and get poisoned too. Brittany found that 55 out of 59 deceased owls tested positive for rat poison — even though they never touched a bait box.

🐢
Gopher Tortoise
State Threatened

Florida's gentle giants — some living over 60 years! Over 1,300 gopher tortoises have been documented on Marco Island alone. When rat populations explode (because poison creates the "vacuum effect"), rats become aggressive and have been documented harming tortoises. Fewer rats — naturally — means safer tortoises.

🐾
Florida Panther
Federally Endangered

Fewer than 250 Florida panthers remain in the wild. They hunt across the same land where bait stations are placed. There is no antidote for some types of rat poison — so if a panther eats poisoned prey, veterinarians can't help. Every bait station is a potential risk to one of the rarest cats on Earth.

03 / 10
The Problem

Rat poison doesn't stay put.

Remember learning about food chains in school? Rat poison travels right up the food chain — from the rat to the animals that eat the rat.

☠️
Poison Added Here
Bait Box
Rat eats the poison and carries it in its body
→
🐀
Rat (Sick)
Poison lives in the rat's body for weeks
→
🦉
Owl Eats Rat
Owl gets a full dose of poison — now the owl is sick too
→
💀
Owl Dies
The owl never touched a single bait box

This is called secondary poisoning.
The owl, hawk, or panther didn't eat the poison on purpose.
They just ate what owls, hawks, and panthers are supposed to eat.
The food chain did its job — and poison rode it all the way up.

04 / 10
Why Poison Doesn't Work

The Vacuum Effect —
Nature Hates Empty Spaces

Even if poison kills rats today, more rats move in within weeks. Here's why — and why it means poison companies can keep charging every month forever.

Before Poison
🐀🐀🐀
🦉🦅🦊
Balanced

Some rats live here. But owls, hawks, and foxes naturally keep the population in check. It's messy, but it works.

→
After Poison
🐀🐀
🦉💀 🦅💀
Broken

Rats drop temporarily — but the owls and hawks that ate them also die. Now there are NO predators left to keep the next rats away.

→
3 Months Later
🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
Worse Than Before

New rats find the empty territory and move in. With no predators left to stop them, the population explodes higher than it was before.

🛁
Think of it this way
Imagine trying to empty a bathtub with a bucket — but the drain is still open. You can scoop and scoop, but water keeps flowing in. Poison is the bucket. The open drain is the hole in the building. Smart homeowners close the drain. Pest companies just keep selling you buckets.
04b / 10
The Part Nobody Tells You

Your home was built
rodent-proof.
From the outside.

This isn't about a bad house or a negligent builder. Every home is constructed with materials a rat cannot chew through. The vulnerability isn't the materials — it's the connections.

✅ What Your Home Is Made Of
🧱
Concrete & Stucco
A rat cannot chew through it. Impenetrable. Rodent-proof by design.
🪵
Wood Sheathing & Framing
Sealed, painted, finished — a continuous surface. Rodent-proof when intact.
🏠
Roof Tile & Decking
Solid and continuous. A rat walking your roofline finds nothing — until it finds a connection point.
→
⚠️ Where the Vulnerability Lives
🔩
Pipe & Conduit Penetrations
Every wire, pipe, and AC line that enters your home leaves a gap. Builders seal for water. Nobody checks whether a quarter-inch opening fits a roof rat.
🌬️
Soffit Returns & Roof Vents
Required for ventilation. Built to water code. The screen that keeps rain out doesn't keep a determined roof rat out.
🚪
Roofline & Garage Transitions
Where two materials meet, there's a gap. Inspectors aren't looking for it. Pest companies aren't finding it. Roof rats are.
📋
Builders follow code. Inspectors follow code. The code is written around water — keeping it out, draining it away. Nobody in that process is checking whether a gap around a conduit fits a roof rat. That's not their job. That's ours.
04b / 10
Two Approaches. One Clear Winner.

What kind of homeowner
are you?

There are two ways to deal with a rat problem. One of them actually solves it.

☠️  The Subscription Trap
Call pest control. They show up, drop bait stations, and charge you monthly. They never look at how the rats are getting in.
Rats come back. Because the hole in your building is still open. The pest company isn't surprised — this is the plan.
Owls and hawks in your yard start dying. They ate the sick rats. Secondary poisoning. Not your fault — but it's happening.
You keep paying. $79/month. $948/year. Year after year. The subscription never ends because the problem never gets solved.
The building stays broken. No one ever fixed it. No one was ever going to.
This is the easy answer. It's also the wrong one.
🔧  The Smart Fix
Ask the right question: "How are they getting in?" A smart homeowner wants to know the structural answer, not just a temporary kill count.
Find the gaps. Every rat problem has an entry point — around pipes, at the roofline, behind vents. Fix the building and new rats can't get in.
Zero poison deployed. No dead owls. No panthers at risk. No bait washing into the canals. Your yard stays safe for pets and kids.
One job. Warrantied. Paul backs the work for a year. If anything gets back in through a sealed point, he fixes it. No surprise bills.
The problem is done. A sealed building is a sealed building. Smart homeowners stop paying monthly for a problem that never had to come back.
This is the right answer. And it protects Florida's wildlife too.
═══════════════════════════════════════ -->
05 / 10
This Is Happening Here

Our backyard.
Our wildlife.

This isn't happening far away. Brittany has been studying what's happening to our local wildlife for years — and the numbers tell a serious story.

55 / 59
Burrowing Owls Poisoned

Deceased burrowing owls tested across Collier County — 93% carried rat poison in their bodies. These ground-level hunters never touched a bait box. They just did their job and paid the price.

157 days
Poison Stays in the Soil

One of the most common rat poisons (brodifacoum) can stay in Florida's soil for up to 157 days. Every rainstorm washes it into our canals. There's no filter to stop it.

1,300+
Tortoises on Marco

More than 1,300 gopher tortoises — a state-threatened species — have been documented on Marco Island preserves. The same preserves where bait stations operate.

"I was told Marco was a lost cause. Over a thousand tortoises. Hundreds of owl pairs. The wildlife was always here — we just had to stop poisoning it."
— Brittany Piersma · Wildlife Biologist · Audubon Western Everglades
06 / 10
The Smart Homeowner Question

Ask why they're getting in.
Not how to kill them.

Pest companies have a financial reason to never ask "how are they getting inside?" — because answering that question ends the subscription. Smart homeowners ask it anyway.

💸
The Lazy Answer

Drop a bait station. Charge monthly. Come back when rats return — and they always return, because the hole in the building is still open. No one ever got paid to fix a building that's already sealed. The subscription model only works when the problem is never actually solved.

$79/month × 12 months = $948/year. Forever. The building never gets fixed.
🔧
The Smart Answer

Find the gap. Seal it with materials rats can't chew through — galvanized steel mesh, copper mesh, sheet metal. Once the entry point is closed, new rats can't get in. One job. Done right. Guaranteed for a year. No monthly fee. No call-back in six months.

One job. Structural fix. Warranted. The problem is actually solved.
The EPA Agrees
The U.S. EPA — the government agency that protects the environment — officially states that sealing entry points is the most effective way to control rodents. Exclusion is the government's top recommendation. Poison is the last resort. The smart homeowners have known this for years.
📍 Southwest Florida Fact
Worth saying out loud when you present this
"It's not a mouse problem — it's a house problem. And here on Marco Island, it's not even mice. There are no mice in your attic. The Florida mouse lives in gopher tortoise burrows in the ground. What's in your attic is a roof rat — a climber that walked your roofline, found a quarter-inch gap, and moved in. Your pest company charged you monthly and never once looked for that gap."
🐭 Florida Mouse
Native species. Lives in gopher tortoise burrows underground. Not in your attic. Not your problem — and a neighbor to the same tortoises poison is hurting.
🐀 Roof Rat (what's actually in your attic)
Climber. Enters at the roofline, soffit returns, ridge vents, AC line gaps. Exploits structural failures. Sealed out permanently. No poison required — ever.
07 / 10
The Solution

Three steps.
No poison. Ever.

This is what Seal Em Out actually does. It's not complicated — but it works in a way that poison never can.

1
🔨
Step One
Seal the Building

Paul inspects every inch of the building — roof, foundation, vents, pipes, garage doors — and seals every single entry point using materials that rats can't chew through. Steel mesh. Sheet metal. No shortcuts. Most homes are fully sealed in one visit.

2
🌿
Step Two
Remove What Attracts Them

Rats come for food and shelter. By securing trash before pickup, trimming vegetation away from the roofline, and eliminating harborage spots, you take away the reason they wanted to be there in the first place. This part is free — it's just habits.

3
🌱
Step Three
Let Nature Do the Rest

For parks and outdoor spaces, a plant-based fertility product called GoodBites helps naturally reduce rat populations over time — with zero poison, zero dead predators, and zero harm to other wildlife. When predators aren't being killed off, they come back and help too.

Safe for pets
Safe for children
Safe for owls & hawks
Safe for Florida panthers
One-time fix with a warranty
Zero monthly contracts
08 / 10
It Already Worked

Marco Island said yes.
Unanimously.

In 2025, a real Florida city made a real decision — and the result was a unanimous vote to go completely poison-free. Here's the story of how that happened.

Step 1 · Brittany's Research
Five Years of Data

Brittany spent five years studying burrowing owls across Collier County — collecting deceased birds, testing them for rodenticide, and documenting the impact. 55 out of 59 owls tested positive. That data became impossible to ignore.

5
Years Studying
59
Owls Tested
93%
Tested Positive
Step 2 · The Pilot Program
Mackle Park Test

Marco Island's city manager heard about the exclusion approach and asked Paul to try it at Mackle Park. Paul sealed the structural entry points. Brittany deployed GoodBites fertility stations. Over 12 months, rat populations dropped by 60%. Zero resident complaints after the exclusion work.

60%
Rat Reduction
0
Complaints
Step 3 · The Vote
City Council Goes Poison-Free

Armed with real data from a real pilot in their own park, Marco Island's City Council voted — unanimously — to eliminate all rat poison from every city-managed property. All 6 facilities switched to exclusion and GoodBites. First city in Florida to do it.

6
City Facilities
POISON
FREE
2025 Onward
Step 4 · What's Next
Your Community Could Be Next

Marco Island proved this works. Now schools, neighborhoods, HOAs, and parks across Southwest Florida can do the same thing. The blueprint is written. Paul and Brittany are ready to bring the presentation to your community — and help make it happen.

✓
Marco Island Complete
→
Your Town is Next
At a Conservation Collier preserve where poison was removed, game cameras documented owls and hawks returning within weeks — and rat activity dropping to near zero. When you stop poisoning the predators, they come back and do their jobs. Nature works when you let it.
Nature
Wins
When We Let It
09 / 10
Take Action

You can help protect
Florida's wildlife today.

It doesn't take a city council vote to make a difference. Here are real things families and students can do right now.

🗣️
Speak Up

Ask your parents, teachers, or HOA board: "Do we use rat poison near our home or school?" If the answer is yes, share what you learned today. One conversation can change a whole neighborhood's approach.

💡 Tip: Share this presentation with an adult who makes decisions about pest control
🏡
Protect Your Home

Ask a grown-up to look for gaps and holes around your house — around pipes, vents, the garage door, and the roofline. Sealing those gaps means rats can't get in, so there's no reason to use poison in the first place.

💡 Tip: Paul can measure any home from satellite photos — no site visit needed for a quote
🦉
Watch for Wildlife

Burrowing owls often live in parks and neighborhoods. If you see one acting sick or staying still during the day, it may have been secondarily poisoned. Report it to Florida Fish & Wildlife (FWC). Every report helps scientists track the damage.

💡 Tip: FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline: 1-888-404-FWCC
Want to bring this to your school, HOA, or community event?
Paul & Brittany · 239-722-8243
sealemout.com · exclusionfirst.netlify.app
10 / 10

Fix the house.
Save the wildlife.

Smart homeowners don't buy a monthly subscription to a problem that never gets solved. They fix the building. One job. Done right. No poison. No dead owls. No surprises.

Paul Trapp · Seal Em Out LLC
Brittany Piersma · Audubon Western Everglades
239-722-8243 · sealemout.com
IT'S A HOUSE PROBLEM. NOT A MOUSE PROBLEM.