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Wild Animals in Attics of Homes - Wildlife Love To Live In Houses

How to Get Animals Out of the Attic

Below are eight photos of animals in attics that I've encountered over the last few months. Removing wild animals from attics is the most common task I undertake as a wildlife control operator. The animals are often mother raccoons, squirrels, or possum looking for a safe place to have and raise their young.  Or in the case of rats or bats, the attic is just a great place for animals to live.  As for snakes, they're usually attracted to the scent of rodents in an attic - so if you have snakes in the attic, you've probably got rats or squirrels as well.  I specialize in humanely removing animals from attics, and keeping them out for good.

 
Raccoons love to live in attics, particularly female raccoons with a litter of babies. This one had three. Read more about: How to Get Raccoons Out of the Attic  Squirrels are one of the most common animals in people's attics. I usually catch 3-5 out of an average attic. Guide for How to Get Squirrels Out of Your Attic

 
Here it is, the roof rat (rattus rattus) in an attic. They create many runways and droppings in the insulation. Instructions on How to Get Rid of Rats in the Attic.  Opossums are very common in attics here in central Florida. Same as always, it's usually a mother with young. It's common that possums die: Dead Opossum in Attic.

 
Sometimes I even get snakes in attics. This is a Yellow Rat Snake, and it was in the attic in search of rats, lured in by their scent trails. I grabbed and removed it.  This is a large colony of bats living in an attic. This group covered much of the attic and was well over 1000 members. I removed them all safely without harm. Read more about: How to Get Bats Out of the Attic

 
Here's yet another photo of a raccoon in an attic, once again a female with a litter of pups nearby.  There were four squirrels in this corner, a mother and 3 young. You can just barely see one down in the soffit.

These are just eight examples of the thing I do most commonly - remove wild animals from people's attics. Wildlife are always on the prowl for a nice place to live, and the attic of a home is often ideal, especially to a female raccoon, squirrel, or opossum in search of a safe place to raise its young. An attic is just like a big old hollow tree to a critter, and it's warm and dry and free from predators. These animals are all expert climbers and can climb pretty much any surface to get on the roof, and then they usually push, claw, or chew their way in, if there's not already a hole or gap somewhere in a vent or part of the architecture. Once inside, they'll stay until the young are grown - a period of many months - and while inside, they'll cause a lot of destruction and biohazardous waste. And speaking of that, let's not forget roof rats. These are the most common animals that I deal with, and they're everywhere. They can squeeze through very tight areas, and cause a lot of headaches for homeowners - scratching and scampering at night, and a lot of chewing and defecating and urinating. They can be serious spreaders of disease. I specialize in trapping and removing these animals, fixing their damage, sealing up the holes they used to enter the building, and cleaning and decontaminating their waste. Sometimes, even though the animals are in the attic, people hear the noise in the ceiling. Click here for info on how to get raccoons out of the ceiling



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How To Remove An Animal From My Attic: Key Tips For Humane Measures Of Relocation
Attics are strange places. We tend to put many of our family items in there for storage and unfortunately there are many times that wild animals break in and help themselves to all of our lovely stuff. It’s not a good idea to ignore a problem with any creature living in your attic and there are several different ways you can combat this inhabitation.

Determine What’s In Your Attic First
Quite often there are a select group of animals that find their way into our warm attic. You may have rats running around the top level of your home, or birds and squirrels. Many people experience bats in their attic even when they live in the city. Others will report that they wished for something that small because they actually had trouble with a raccoon or a whole family of raccoons over the fall. These critters excel in setting up a home in the unused attic space of a house. There are a couple of different ways to get a good idea of what is currently living in your attic. Of course the most trustworthy trick to finding out what has decided to sublet the top level of your home is by seeing it with your own eyes. Then again, not all of us are lucky enough to stumble upon a mother raccoon building a nest for her babies in the comfort of our attic. We instead usually have to identify through sounds and scat. Scat is a term used to refer to the droppings a wild animal leaves. If you hear nocturnal flurries of movement, scratching sounds or slight squeaking there’s a highly probable chance you have a problem with rats. If what you’re hearing is a slightly heavier scurrying that happens in the late morning or early evening there’s a better chance you have a squirrel problem. Truly the most common critter that will make this a habit is a squirrel.

Get Up There
When you attempt to remove the animal from your attic you’re going to have a better idea of the equipment you might need if you know what it is. You’ll want to check the area for droppings and signs of nest. Depending on the size and scatter of the droppings you will probably discover it’s either a squirrel or a family of raccoons. This can help to dictate the size of the trap.

Make The Adjustments
Once you do find that there’s a slight problem with bats, squirrels or even raccoons in your home you’ll need to make the proper arrangements to make sure you’re doing all you can to get rid of them and keep them from coming back. If you find by examining the droppings you have a bird or a bat problem then you’ll need to do a little work to find how they are getting in and more importantly to stop them from doing so. When you have squirrels or even raccoons up there you’re going to want to follow a few extra precautions. When removing wildlife without the assistance of a professional it can become hard to make some decisions. Many people consider poison, live traps or other removal measures they can do on their own. If you have heard large, heavy movements mainly at night you most likely have a raccoon or family of raccoons making a home for themselves in your attic. If this is the case you’ll truly want to call a professional to help you relocate these animals. If you’re considering just waiting it out in hopes the wild critter will move on, you should reconsider this possibility. Once they have found a cozy spot they tend to make themselves comfortable and reap the benefits of the warm, sheltered area. They come with a whole lot of filth in the form of bacteria and the droppings they leave behind so you don’t want them to feel welcomed. A professional can help you find out how they are getting in while at the same time trapping the animals and releasing them to a safe area.

How to catch a raccoon in the attic - Because raccoons are very smart, catching one in the attic is not as simple as you might think. Setting out a cage trap on your attic floor is not the correct way to snag the animal. Assuming you’re allowed to take this project on, since most states won’t let homeowners, the first thing you need to do is learn where the raccoon is entering the space. If you can find this hole and attach the cage trap, you might be able to scare the animal out of the attic and into the device. Unfortunately, there are almost always baby raccoons in the attic as well. This can complicate matters. If the mother raccoon is absent, the babies should be removed. You can place them in the cage trap and use them to draw in the mother. Just be sure you monitor the trap closely and keep the babies protected from weather and other predators. If the mother raccoon refuses to leave the attic because of her kits, you will have to snare her and then usher her into a cage. As you can see, there’s good reason why most states require you to have a license to perform this trapping task. Click here to read more about How to Get Rid of Raccoons in the Attic with photos.

How to get rid of rats in attic - Rats like attics because this space often affords them quiet and safety and is usually close enough to a food supply that they don’t have to worry about venturing beyond their comfort zone. Attics are poorly patrolled by homeowners due to awkward accessibility and exposed structure materials. This environment is perfect for the privacy-seeking rat. You will know you have rats in your attic by the copious amounts of large feces scattered everywhere. Rats use feces and urine to mark their territory, so anywhere the rats goes will be lined with the creature’s waste matter. While this makes for a terrible mess and is a potential health hazard, it will also help you in determining where you should set your traps. Grease marks are a great way to determine where a rat frequently passes through. You will also see a larger concentration of fecal material in these areas. Though it may seem counterintuitive, set your traps in this type of location. A rat does not look for a clean area to expel waste. It will return to tried and true spaces and continue to use them. Once you have managed to trap the rats, cleanup of the area is equally important. Rat waste will lure in new rats. For this reason, patching the holes in your home is also a vital part of being rodent-free. Mice are the same way, but they can fit into smaller areas. Read about: How to Get Mice Out of the Attic.

How To Get Rid Of Squirrels In The Attic - The key is to find the open holes they are using to get into the attic in the first place. It's best to set traps near this hole, or better yet, set a repeater trap or one-way door right on that hole. How to get animals out of the attic is one of the questions that every animal control professional gets. The reason for that is that is that there are not that many great places for squirrels to hide as the attic. Think about it for a second; if you have a squirrel in the attic then more than likely it came in through the roof or the wall. That means that there is a way for the squirrel to go out and look for food while securing great shelter from predators and from the weather outside. There is no way that you will be able to trap the squirrel using a towel in the attic because there usually is no room to maneuver up there. You should also avoid using any kind of poison because of the risk of having the powerful dead squirrel smell in every room in your house. That leaves you with the trap option. There are many great traps in the market that make trapping squirrels seem easy. You can choose between lethal traps and live traps if you want to get rid of them in a more humane manner. Place the bait in the trap and you should have a squirrel in a few hours.

I operate a professional wildlife removal business in Orlando Florida. It is not a pest control or extermination company, nor is it the county animal control. It is a privately owned nuisance critter and wildlife control business. For more company information, just browse this site.

Tel: 407-538-1694  •   Fax: 407-264-8890  •   Email: david@247wildlife.com  •   Residential & Commercial  •   Licensed & Insured  •   USA Trapper List - 50 States