Take Steps To Keep Your Home From Being Wild Animal’S House
Uninvited guests can be annoying. Uninvited guests who tear up your house, make noise in the middle of the night and leave a smelly mess behind are downright exasperating.
That’s what wild animals can do when they find their way into your house, which is happening more frequently due to problems created by urban sprawl. As more rural areas are developed, animals have fewer natural places to live. Whether they sneak into a house through a roof vent or tumble in through the chimney, they can create havoc once they’re inside and be a pain to get rid of. Sometimes they can do real damage.
Brian Miller, a nuisance-wildlife trapper from Oakwood, Ohio, and others who remove nuisance animals from homes recommend doing all you can to keep the wildlife from getting inside in the first place.
First, don’t feed the critters. Animals seek food and shelter. Make either or both easily available, and you might find critters setting up camp at your house or at one of your neighbors’ homes.
Keep your garbage in a trash can with a locking lid, or use bungee cords to hold the lid on. “Plastic garbage bags are the most attractive food source for any animal,” Miller says. “It’s like saying, `Here’s a gourmet meal. Come and get it.”’
Animals often enter houses to get out of the cold and to find a place to nest or hibernate. Nesting is a particular problem, Miller says, because many animals like to return to the same nesting spot year after year - and if that spot happens to be in your attic, they’ll try hard to find a way in.
Any opening in a house is an open door to wildlife, Rastetter says. Raccoons will even tear out loose siding or rotting wood to get in, he says, so it’s wise to inspect your house periodically and keep up with maintenance.
Chimneys are another common entry point, particularly for birds. Nuisance-animal trapper Cathy Schultz recommends investing in a chimney cap to keep animals out.
Schultz recommends covering the chimney opening with hardware cloth - a type of wire mesh - bolted in place with concrete bolts or attached with heavy wire.
Other suggestions the animal-control authorities recommend for animal-proofing your home are:
Look for and repair even small openings in your home’s exterior, especially in fascia boards and soffits.
If your fireplace has a clean-out door on the outside of the house, keep it latched.
Check vent covers periodically for deterioration. Don’t overlook the dryer vent.
Keep the fireplace damper closed.
Don’t leave windows or doors open without screens.
Don’t keep brush piles in the yard. They can harbor wildlife.
If an animal does find its way into your home, Huss recommends calling an animal control company if you can’t shoo it out easily. If you do try to catch the animal yourself, he recommends using only a box trap.