NEW BUILDS, MOVING GROUND
Can a house this new really have mice?
Yes, and Northlake is the town where we get asked it most. A new envelope is tight in almost every respect, but two or three details are consistently left short: the bottom corners of the garage door, the hole cut for the air conditioning line set, and penetrations filled with expanding foam that a rodent opens in a night.
The other half is what is happening outside. Northlake has been building steadily along TX-114 and I-35W, and every time a field is graded, the animals living in it move. They do not leave the area; they go to the nearest standing structure, which is whichever finished street is next to the work.
So the pattern here is not an old house failing slowly. It is a good house with a few unfinished spots, next to ground that keeps handing it new visitors.
THE NORTHLAKE FIGURE
What the add-on costs on a newer Northlake home
Rodent control is $25 a month and it attaches to a year-round plan, Home Defender or Complete Home & Lawn Defense. There is no standalone option, which matters more on a new street than an old one: the seals need re-checking while construction continues nearby, and that is what the plan visits do.
The plan is priced on the size of the house. Most Northlake builds land between 1,500 and 3,000 square feet at $33 to $38 for Home Defender, giving $58 to $63 in total, or between 3,000 and 4,500 at $38 to $46, giving $63 to $71. Complete Home & Lawn Defense covers the whole yard on the same house sizes and carries the same $25 rodent line. Everything is month to month, and you can price the plan yourself at /instant-quote.
Rodent add-on
$25 a month
Rides along with a year-round plan, not alone
Home Defender, 1,500 to 3,000 sq ft
$33–$38 a month
Most of the newer floor plans
Home Defender, 3,000 to 4,500 sq ft
$38–$46 a month
The larger two-storey builds
Complete Home & Lawn Defense, 1,500 to 3,000 sq ft
$40–$51.50 a month
Fire ants and the whole yard included
Every number on this page comes from our published price list. Northlake homes get the same table as everyone else; the instant quote reads your square footage and lot size and hands you your own line.
WHERE IT FALLS SHORT
What sealing a new Northlake house does not change
It does not slow the construction down. While lots up the road are being graded, rodents will keep being displaced toward finished streets, and that continues until the subdivision is built out. A sealed house simply stops being one of the options, which is the only lever anyone actually has.
It does not correct the garage door. If the seal is hard, the slab is uneven or the door sits proud at a corner, that is the builder's or a door company's work. We will seal everything around it and show you exactly where the daylight is, but adjusting a door is not pest control.
And it does nothing about what is stored in the garage. Bagged pet food, birdseed and a chest freezer with crumbs underneath are why a garage keeps drawing mice back after it has been trapped clean. That one is entirely within your control and it is worth more than another trap.
A DIY THRESHOLD KIT
A garage seal kit next to a full exclusion
A rubber threshold kit from the hardware store is genuinely useful and we will not pretend otherwise. On a new Northlake garage it closes the worst gap for well under a hundred dollars, and if the only issue is a slightly high slab, that may be the whole fix. Fitting it yourself takes an afternoon.
What it does not do is find the other openings. The line set penetration, a dryer vent flap that does not close, a gap behind the brick at a roof return — those stay open, and the mice that were using the garage simply switch. The exclusion is worth paying for when you want the building closed rather than one door improved, and the inspection is the part you cannot buy in a box.
THE NEW-BUILD WALK
What we check on a Northlake house first time out
Both corners of the garage door
This is the single most productive place to look on a newer house. We check the seal along the slab, both bottom corners, the side jamb and where the track meets the wall, and anything a mouse is using gets closed with material that does not compress or tear.
Line sets, vents and new brick
Every wall penetration gets looked at: the air conditioning line set, dryer and bathroom vents, hose bibs, gas and electrical entries, and any spot where the foam has shrunk back. The weep holes themselves are already packed with copper mesh and dusted under both year-round plans, so the gaps beside them are what we are after.
What the lot backs onto
A Northlake lot facing another finished street is a different job from one facing a field or an active site. We walk that boundary, look for runs and burrows in the open ground behind the fence, and put traps and locked stations on the side the pressure is actually coming from.
