As the season changes from summer to fall, the behavior of wildlife adapts. There are only a few nuisance animals that are true hibernators. So most of the animals that cause a problem can continue to be a pest through winter.

1. Raccoons: these animals stand around a foot tall and normally weigh between 10-50 pounds. They have a visible black mask on their face and their bushy tail is covered in alternating black and gray rings.
2. Squirrels: These rodents may be anywhere from 12 to 25 inches long. They are small but muscular with sharp claws. Their coloration varies; they can be seen in shades of black, gray, red, and brown. Squirrel fur is short, thick, and bushiest along the tail. Oftentimes, their underbellies will differ in color from the coats on their backs.
3. Opossums: These mammals are about the size of a cat. They have a pointed face with a narrow snout, small eyes and a long, hairless, prehensile tail that acts as a fifth limb, allowing them to climb well. Opossums are covered in grayish-white fur and have more teeth than any other mammal in the United States.
4.  Rats: The most common rats in the United States are Norway rats (also known as the “brown rat,” “house rat,” “sewer rat” and “wharf rat”). They have bald ears, black eyes, a blunt nose, a brown or gray body, and a tail smaller than the body. Norway rats are about 16 inches in length, including their tails.
5. Mice: The house mouse is the most common type of mouse in populated areas. They are small, slender rodents with large ears, sensitive noses and small eyes. Their fur is typically dusty brown or dull gray on top, with lighter shades along the chin and stomach. Rodents have hairless tails that are long and scaly, and their feet are well-equipped for grasping, burrowing, and climbing.

Squirrels on the Roof and in the Attic

Squirrels are one of the most active nuisance animals during the fall. Squirrels can have two litters during the year– one in the spring and the other in the fall. Female squirrels are looking for safe places to create a nest to give birth and safely raise their young. Attics, roofs, and walls are perfect places for squirrel nests.

Squirrels typically enter homes through the roof making their way into the attic. When inside homes, squirrels will eat most foodstuffs they can gain access to, including garbage and various food scraps.

Squirrels use their muscular builds and sharp claws and teeth to cause a lot of damage to the interior and exterior of a house. They often use their powerful teeth to gnaw on wooden support beams, fascia, soffits, eves, gable end vents, and other areas located around and above the roofline. This behavior can go from costly to dangerous when they gnaw on electrical wires, which could potentially lead to a house fire.

Nuisance Raccoons in the Fall

Raccoons may look a bit small but they are exceptionally strong and can exploit exterior weaknesses in homes, to gain access inside. Most commonly, they will attempt to enter through the roof by using their strength to rip up shingles to enter the attic, but they have also been known to come in by tearing through soffits, vents, and more. Once inside, raccoons most commonly nest in attics, chimneys, walls, basements and crawl spaces. Be careful opening your outdoor trash containers; raccoons can be found inside them, feasting on trash and food scraps.

Raccoons are very strong and intelligent, equipped with thumb-like digits on their paws, allowing them to create more damage than a homeowner might expect. They can rip up a wide variety of materials inside and outside your home. As autumn comes around and the weather cools, raccoons sense the temperature change and seek out a warm, safe place to nest. If they identify your home as an optimal place to spend the winter, they may attempt to enter it through various areas until they find one that works out for them; they possess the strength, intelligence, and tenacity to keep trying until they succeed.

Rat Infestations during Autumn

Rats can be found in many places throughout the home, including the basement, the attic, the ceiling, crawl spaces, walls, and more. A rat’s particular taste can depend on the food that is easily accessible in its natural ecosystem, but inside the home, they tend to gravitate toward cereals, grains, pet food, crumbs of all kinds, and much more.

Rats have strong teeth and jaws, allowing them to chew through many things inside a house, including wood, vinyl, thin metals, wood, plastic, and more. They are also known to chew through cables and wires, potentially starting detrimental electrical fires in a home.

Mice Problems in the House

Mice traveling around your home and food supply can cause the spread of unpleasant diseases. They are known to urinate and defecate in all areas of the home they frequent. As with other mammals in the home, mice commonly chew on just about anything they can access, including wires and cables.

With mice being so small, the opportunities are almost endless as to where a mouse can enter. Mice may try to enter your home through screen doors that don’t properly latch or have tears in their mesh, openings along the roof line and crawl spaces. Once inside, they are known to live in various areas of the house, including attics,  inside walls, kitchens, and crawl spaces. Mice feed at least 20 times each day and will sample just about any available food they can find, so be on the lookout for food that has been nibbled at and discarded in your kitchen or pantry.

Opossums in the Yard and the Attic

Opossums can be found in quite a few places in and around the home. Inside the house, you can often find them living in your attic. Outside the house, you can find them on your roof, under your deck, in a shed or even under your house. These omnivores are opportunistic scavengers; they will feast on a wide variety of foods. Their natural diets include insects, ticks, small rodents, frogs, birds, frogs, birds and berries. When on your property, they tend to eat vegetables, fruits, garbage, bird seed, pet food, meat and more; as the weather cools, they tend to prefer meat-based meals, over bugs and vegetables.

To avoid confrontation, they will play dead so predators leave them alone. Opossums are opportunistic and don’t typically cause physical damage to enter a home but they will use an opening to gain entrance if they find one. When inside or around a home, they can spread diseases like tuberculosis, spotted fever and more, in addition to carrying ticks and other parasites.

How to Prevent Nuisance Wildlife in the Fall

These animals share common reasons for entering homes as autumn comes around and the weather gets cold. They come inside in hopes of accessing a warm and safe environment for them to live in or a safe play to raise their young.

The best way to keep animals from being attracted to your home is to keep the area surrounding your home as unattractive to them as possible.

Some things you can do to ensure that include:

Raking leaves & mowing the lawn: small animals thrive in unkempt yards and lawns; if they get comfortable spending time in and around your yard, they may get more and more tempted to approach the house and try to find a way inside. In autumn, homeowners should be sure to regularly rake the leaves off their lawn and consistently mow their grass, so their yards do not get overgrown and covered with leaves, providing ample opportunity for animal encroachment. Additionally, it is recommended to keep wood/brush piles organized and off the ground if possible.

Keeping food away from your house: bird feeders that drop bird seed to the ground are known to attract various critters to your yard and home; you may want to consider getting rid of your bird feeders if you encounter animal issues in and around your home. Pet owners should be sure to keep all pet food inside, so as not to attract unwanted critters. Additionally, many animals are fine with eating garbage and food scraps, so outdoor trash cans and bins should be sealed and secured.

The most common species of birds found in attics are pigeons, barn swallows, European starlings, house finches, and house sparrows. In most cases, the birds get into the attic from openings along the roof line, soffits, attic vents, or damaged sidings. In addition to attics, we commonly see birds roosting in chimneys, vents, and exhaust pipes.

When dealing with birds, it is important to understand many federal, state, and local wildlife protection laws protect most bird species. It is not recommended for at home DIY when dealing with birds in risk of going against the laws protecting most species. European Starlings, Pigeons, and House sparrows are the only birds not protected by the Migratory Bird Act.

Bird Control Services for Birds in the Attic

Depending on the species and location of nests, bird control services vary and can include visual and auditory deterrents or anti-roosting devices such as bird slides. 

The most effective methods of bird removal from the attic, chimneys, and vents are one-way doors, traps, and exclusion methods (sealing the home and blocking any potential entry points) Once this method has been executed, a trained pest control specialist can also remediate and sanitize the space where the birds occupied. Birds, like all wild animals, can easily spread and carry disease, so if a bird is in your home it’s important to not only safely remove the animal(s) but sanitize the space as well for the safety of the occupants. 

In some situations, other methods of removal and prevention work for birds in the attic. These can include habitat modification to nearby roofs and trees, various architecture exclusion, repellents, spikes, mylar tape, and scare tactics for persistent birds or large flocks.

About the author

Meg Pearson, Wildlife Training Manager
Meg has over 13 years of experience in the wildlife industry. She started as a wildlife technician and was district manager and technical training manager supporting the Southeast Region.  She currently is one of the company’s wildlife training managers. As one of the training managers, her primary focus is special projects and leading Women in Wildlife.

Meg Pearson, Wildlife Training Manager

Skunks are attracted to areas with accessible food sources and shelter. By eliminating these attractants and implementing certain deterrents, you can reduce the likelihood of them entering your yard. 

Lawns, especially newly created ones, are immensely attractive to skunks, as they tend to be heavily watered and loaded with worms and grubs. Skunks dig small holes where grubs are located, which can make your lawn ugly quite quickly.

How do you know a skunk is in your yard?

You can typically tell when a skunk is in your yard by their pungent/distinct odor. If you see signs of digging or upturned soil in your yard, it may be the result of skunk foraging.

When are skunks a problem in the yard?

Skunk problems are typically at their peak during three times of the year:

• Mating season (mid-February through mid-March)
• Birthing seasons (May–June)
• Winter foraging (approximately October–November) when skunks dig up lawns searching for grubs and worms

Skunk Mating Season

Mating season involves skunks seeking mates — and this often occurs nears homes. Homeowners report skunk tracks in the snow or smell skunk spray. Skunks secrete spray when they are mating and males often spray when they’re fighting and feel threatened.

Birthing Season

The season of skunks’ birth is a precarious one for removal — we can either relocate the entire family, including mother and babies, or we can seal off the areas that skunks are inhabiting and install a one-way valve that allows the family to exit but not re-enter. This can only be done when young are able to walk (3+ weeks).

The very last thing we want is to separate a mother from her kits. When we trap skunks, we always inspect the gender of the animal to ensure we aren’t accidentally relocating a mother who may get separated from her young on your property Many wildlife companies may not attempt the extra care of not separating mothers from their babies, but Critter Control of New Hampshire considers it a necessary step.

Skunk Winter Foraging

When skunks forage in lawns, it can often look like someone ran a rototiller across your yard. In some parts of the country, fall brings rain, which saturates the soil and brings earthworms to the surface. This provides easy access to a food source for skunks. 

Skunk control for your yard

Skunks are attracted to the worms and grubs in your lawn and garden. Lay down 1-inch mesh chicken wire, securing it with stakes or heavy stones.It’s also important for homeowners to prevent access to denning sites, as skunks will readily den under houses, sheds, or porches if given the chance. Close off these areas with ¼-inch hardware cloth, boards, or metal flashing. Make all connections flush and secure, and you’ll keep out smaller animals like mice and rats, too.

Each state has their own laws and regulations regarding skunk removal. Homeowners should avoid attempting skunk control themselves and should instead call a professional due to the risk of rabies and diseases transmitted through skunk bites, as well as potential property damage from their foraging and sharp claws.

About the author

Meg has over 13 years of experience in the wildlife industry. She started as a wildlife technician and was district manager and technical training manager supporting the Southeast Region.  She currently is one of the company’s wildlife training managers. As one of the training managers, her primary focus is special projects and leading Women in Wildlife.

Critter Control Reviews

As winter approaches and cold weather settles in, animals are looking for places to stay warm.  There are a number of ways that nuisance wildlife will den or nest on our properties and in our homes, and there are few measures that can be taken to help prevent and address these behaviors.

Like humans, critters prefer to stay warm and protected from the elements during cold weather. Attics and crawlspaces provide wildlife with warmth, nesting materials, and safety they need to survive during cold temperatures.

Common Winter Pest Animals

The most common pests we see moving indoors during the colder months are squirrels, rats, mice, raccoons, and opossums. It’s important none of these animals hibernate. So if they are in your home to escape the cold weather, they’ll continue to be a nuisance.  

Bats in the winter can pose a unique problem. Some bat species hibernate while other species migrate. If you live in a colder climate, you might have hibernating bats in your attic.

We do not remove hibernating bats, we will repair everything on the structure with the exception of where the bats are roosting until temperatures warm up and the bats start moving again. There are some parts of the U.S. that will have migrating bat problems. For example, homeowners in the Rio Grande area of Texas can have migrating bat problems. In those cases, we can remove bats immediately.

How to Prevent Nuisance Animal Problems During the Winter

 It is important to keep a well manicured lawn year around, but especially during seasonal changes. Piles of leaves, debris and overgrown bushes and branches can offer a warm, safe environment for critters to nest or den. Additionally, keeping all food/household waste in tightly sealed garbage bins, along with keeping up any outdoor pet food will help deter nuisance wildlife from being attracted to the property. 

It’s crucial to conduct routine inspections of your property and to have any entry points sealed by a wildlife control professional to stop and prevent unwanted pests from coming in.

All structures, whether houses, apartments or commercial properties, can have a variety of entry points for pests to make their way inside for warmth and shelter. Chimneys, ground and roof vents, soffits, rooflines, decks and siding all have different types of intentional and unintentional gaps as a part of their structures. As a reference point, both mice and bats can get into spaces less than an inch large.

Costs of Nuisance Wildlife Damage

Nuisance animals can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of damage to wood, plastic, metal, and insulation in your home such as electric wiring, plumbing pipes. They can also cause this damage very quickly. If you believe you have a nuisance wildlife issue, it is recommended to call a wildlife control professional immediately. This winter, stay one step ahead of these critters and take the proper steps to transition your home to keep the warmth in and the critters out!

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