Critter Control of Fredericksburg

Humane Wildlife Removal

Critter Control is here for you every step of the way in the wildlife removal process. From inspection to removal—and even exclusion and repair—we have the services you need to get rid of raccoons, rodents, and other nuisances fast. First, we identify the animal on the property, then use humane methods to remove the animal and secure weak points where more could enter. If damage has been done, we can make those repairs for a complete restoration. Contact a Critter Control office near you today.

Nusiance Wildlife Problems in Fredericksburg, VA

Northern Virginia boasts some of the most diverse and beautiful wildlife in the U.S. Fredericksburg, located on the scenic Rappahannock River, offers natural beauty to go with its urban amenities. Area critters often escape hot, humid summers or cool winters by taking refuge in homes and apartments.

Squirrels, raccoons, bats, rats, and snakes can invade your home and cause significant structural damage. When this happens, it’s time to contact a wildlife removal service in Northern Virginia.

Critter Control offers comprehensive wildlife removal and building restoration. We can remove wildlife from any residential or commercial property regardless of your situation. Our licensed professionals can identify the animal’s location and completely remove all traces of it from your house or business. We provide eco-friendly, humane, and efficient wildlife removal in Northern Virginia.

Squirrel Removal

There are two main types of squirrels in Northern Virginia: tree squirrels and flying squirrels. Flying squirrels and tree squirrels share a lot of similarities. The two significant differences (besides that flying squirrels can glide) are when they're awake and breeding season. Flying squirrels are nocturnal. Tree squirrels are active during the day. Flying squirrels give birth once a year; tree squirrels have two litters a year.

Squirrels have powerful legs, razor-like teeth, and sharp toenails, which give them easy access to food. They can cause enormous damage to your house by chewing through roof decking or peeling back your roof shingles. They also drop debris from trees. Furthermore, squirrels can transmit diseases such as Lyme disease, which you can contract without contacting the squirrel.

Inspection: Our team inspects your house looking for signs of squirrel activity such as openings in your house, droppings, or nesting debris. We may find gnaw marks on the roof or crawl space.

Trapping & Removal: Squirrels can be difficult to catch due to their agility. However, we can outsmart squirrels by using excluders, live traps, or deterrents that keep them away.

Repairs: If we discover damage caused by squirrels, we can repair the damage on-site. Our repair service includes full decontamination, nest cleanup and removal, and structural repairs.

Raccoon Removal

You rarely see a raccoon during the day because they are largely nocturnal. This nocturnal behavior makes it difficult to catch them. They have powerful jaws and claws, as well as nimble hands that allow them to get into just about any space or container that isn’t secured. Once a raccoon enters your home, it can cause extensive damage to the walls, flooring, and attic area.

Raccoons also carry a variety of diseases, including leptospirosis, roundworm, and rabies. When threatened, raccoons can become aggressive and highly dangerous. Therefore, you should never approach a raccoon. Instead, contact a wildlife removal company in Northern Virginia to safely remove the animal from your property.

Inspection: An inspection involves looking for raccoon dropping and footprints. Raccoons also create large openings that are located in the roof, flooring, or walls.

Trapping & Removal: To remove the raccoons without killing them, we use bait and advanced traps. We also remove any babies from the premises.

Repairs: Once we remove the raccoons, we search your entire property for structural damage. We professionally seal all entry points and replace any missing insulation. We also disinfect the area and clean up any messes made by the animals.

Bat Removal

Bats are vital to Northern Virginia’s ecosystem, as they pollinate and disperse the seeds of thousands of plants. However, bats carry diseases such as rabies. They also host more than a dozen parasites and insects, which can populate in your home or office. Many of these parasites, such as ticks, mites, fleas, and bat bugs, can go undetected.

Since bats are also largely nocturnal, they are difficult to spot. They often come out when you are asleep and sleep when you are awake. They also make small holes in the roof, basement, or attic, which you may mistake for a rat or mouse. If you discover bats in the building, do not approach them. Instead, contact a professional bat removal company.

Inspection: Most bats enter buildings along the roof, which is where we begin our inspection. Our assessment team looks for bat droppings on the roof surface and small holes in the fascia, chimney, ridge, or skylights. From there, we can trace small holes, which lead us to the bats.

Trapping & Removal: When it comes to removing bats, ultrasonic and aerosol deterrents do not work. Instead, we use safe exclusion methods to isolate the bats and remove them.

Repairs: we remove all traces of bats, disinfect the area, and seal/caulk the opening and cracks. We also perform any major structural repairs, if necessary.

Rat Pest Control

Rat infestation accelerates quickly, as they are prolific breeders. Once a rat population spreads throughout the building, it is almost impossible to remove them completely. The myth that rats only spend time in low-income or abandoned areas in town is false. No house, neighborhood, or area is immune to rats. This is because they are driven by the need to eat and mate, which they can do anywhere.

Rats cause property damage, spread infections, and contaminate food. They carry parasites such as ticks, lice, and fleas, which can remain in your home or business long after you remove the rats. Rats can also cause structural damage by chewing through wood and other building materials.

Inspection: Fortunately, it’s not hard to track rats. They often leave droppings and make nests out of paper and other materials. We look for signs of invasion such as droppings and nests and listen for movement in the walls, flooring, or ceiling.

Trapping & Removal: There are dozens of solutions for removing rats. We assess your situation and develop a removal plan that works in your building.

Repairs: Our team can apply caulk in cracks, seal holes, and install mesh in the vents. We can create a full envelope around the house to prevent further rat invasion.

Skunk Control 

In Fredericksburg, VA, skunks enter yards at night to feed on insects. They eat scraps in garbage cans or outdoor pet food bowls. Spilled seed from birdfeeders will also attract skunks. These pests often create dens in thick brush or areas beneath porches and sheds.

While rare, skunks can carry rabies, a life-threatening disease that passes to humans or animals. Skunk spray is also a hazard for pets, as curious dogs often receive a blast if they get too close. Additionally, Virginia residents may see lawn damage when skunks dig for grubs.

Beaver Removal

Let’s say you wake up one morning to find your basement flooded with water. You check all the pipes and water lines but see nothing broken. You are shocked to learn the flooding was caused by a beaver who dammed up a nearby creek.

Beavers are mini architects and engineers and like to build homes in, around, and under waterscapes. While the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources reports a landowner can legally kill a beaver that has damaged property, we have a better way of getting rid of the wildlife.

Inspection: We not only inspect the areas damaged in your home, but we also inspect your yard and surrounding properties, as well as nearby water sources. We want to find the dams, holes, and nests created by the beaver.

Removal: We use specific wildlife exclusion methods to safely and humanely trap and relocate beavers back into the wild, far away from your property.

Repair: We are happy to repair the damage caused by beavers. This can mean cleaning out flooded areas, filling in holes in the ground, and installing a better drainage system to redirect water away from your home.

Bird Removal

Virginia is for love birds and nuisance birds. Pigeons, sparrows, European starlings, and woodpeckers are a few examples. They seem harmless until they wipe out a fruit crop, leave droppings that can carry disease, and build nests that clog your gutters. If you have a woodpecker near your home, you get to wake up each morning to constant pecking noises, the ones that represent hundreds of holes in your wood home or trees.

We can help stop the madness.

Inspection: The inspection requires a little more for birds than other animals because of the many different species in Fredericksburg. We conduct an extensive investigation of the birds living on your property, including inside and outside your home and in the trees in your yard. We find their nests, identify droppings, locate entry points, and examine the damage in your landscape.

Removal: Removing birds from your home and property is more about implementing deterrents, like spikes, netting, wire, electrical or acoustic solutions. Each bird may require a different answer.

Repair: A primary goal in repairing bird damage is to clean and sanitize, remove nests, and secure entry points. We also improve food and water sources to attract the right birds to your area.

Snake Removal

Now that the cicadas are appearing, snakes are coming out in droves in Fredericksburg. They love to eat cicadas and are bothered by the sound the insects make. While snakes don’t do too much damage to your home or property, they don’t mind hanging out wherever they choose. They can make appearances at the neighborhood barbecue, in the basement laundry room, or even your vehicle.

If the snake in your yard is poisonous, you and your pets are in danger. We can take away your worries by removing snakes from your property.

Inspection: During our inspection, we look for snake skins, feces, and the snakes themselves. We look for food and water sources and check outdoor environments that appeal to snakes, like piles of rocks.

Removal: We have a humane and safe way to trap and handle snakes. We relocate the snakes back into the wild.

Repair: Snakes don’t cause much damage, but we are happy to remove skins, close entry points, and clean areas where snakes lived. Also, we give you tips on how to avoid attracting snakes to your home and property in the future.

Burrowing Lawn Critters in Fredericksburg

Virginia residents have run-ins with many animals that dig in yards and gardens. Woodchuck and chipmunk foraging habits put the pests at odds with homeowners. Woodchucks that unearth newly planted bulbs can harm garden crops. Likewise, chipmunk tunnels may lead to sidewalk and patio damage.

Nuisance Wildlife FAQ

What are some of the most common wildlife issues that homeowners face in Spotsylvania County?

The most common wildlife issues a homeowner will face in this area are damages to their home from mice, grey squirrels, and bats.  Mice and grey squirrels are known to chew into attics and destroy insulation.  Once these animals enter a home, they are capable of causing structural damage amounting to thousands of dollars.  Many house fires are started by these pests chewing on wires in attics.  The required steps needed to remove and prevent these pests from entering back into the home are trapping, exclusion, and sanitation of contaminated areas. 

Bats cause thousands of dollars in damages as a result of destroying insulation and siding from their droppings and urine.  Bats will enter into a home through construction gaps at the roofline, chimneys, roof returns, chew holes from other wildlife, or windows and doors that were left open.  The most common way a bat will enter the home is through a gable end vent.  Bats will hang onto the bug screen on the inside of the vents.  Over time, their droppings will accumulate and deteriorate the bug screen.  Once the bug screen is destroyed, bats may enter into the attic and eventually the living space.  Bat droppings that accumulate in the home pose a serious health threat to those living in the home and therefore must be removed right away. Removal, exclusion, and sanitization of contaminated areas must be performed in order to solve a bat problem.

How do the seasons affect wildlife activity in Fredericksburg?
Warmer temperatures bring more critters. However, pests such as mice/rats, raccoons, grey squirrels, and flying squirrels thrive in the colder months.  

Any prevention tips for residents in your area?
Regularly inspect your home.  If you notice any strange signs such as chew holes, debris build up, or if you hear any strange noises, call Critter Control.  A technician will provide you with a thorough inspection and be able to provide you with a solution, no matter what type of pest you are dealing with.  A Critter Control technician with work with you in order to promptly schedule and begin the extraction process.  Most importantly, once the wildlife is removed, all repairs done to the home are warrantied!  Once we get the pests out, we keep them out!

When should homeowners call Critter Control?
At the first sign of evidence.  It could be damage to the house such as chew holes, debris build up, or stains.  It could also be a strange sound you hear in the attic such as scratching, walking, or other strange wildlife sounds. It is important to address wildlife issues as soon as possible.  It will cost much less to address a wildlife issue sooner rather than later.

Serving the following locations:

By County: Spotsylvania County