How We Solve Lakeland Wildlife Problems
It starts with your phone call. We answer our phones 24/7, and we will carefully listen to your wildlife problem. Every case is different, so we will ask appropriate questions to help
us understand the situation better. Questions like, "do you hear the noises at night or during the daytime?" or "what type of roof do you have?" After we have a general idea of your
situation, we can provide a ballpark price range, and schedule a same-day or next-day appointment to inspect your property.
INSPECTION: Once on site, we will perform a full inspection of your home and property. This allows us to use the correct strategy and traps. If the animals are in an attic, a full building inspection is crucial, including the following:
- All ground-level areas, such as piper or A/C line entry & exit areas, A/C chase bottoms, ground-level vents, etc.
- All mid-level areas, such as dryer vents, siding gaps, first floor eaves or dormers, etc.
- We inspect the entire roof, including all plumbing stacks, ridge caps, vents, and other potential gaps or holes.
- We also inspect inside your attic, to identify animals and damage they have caused.
- If the animals are outside, we notice many subtle clues that will assist us in a successful strategy.
TRAPPING, EXCLUSION, REMOVAL: Once we understand what animal species we are dealing with, and the problem, we use the most effective means of removing the animals. We use dozens of different types of traps.
- Trapping - If trapping the animal(s) in live cage traps, trap type, set, and location are crucial to success.
- Exclusion - Oftentimes, we are able to simply set one-way doors or other exclusion devices that allow the animals inside a building to safely exit, but never get back inside.
- Removal By Hand - Sometimes we actually remove animals by hand, or with special tools like snare poles.
- The Law - In all cases, we obey state and local laws regarding wildlife, but aim to take the most humane approach.
ENTRY HOLE REPAIRS: Repairs are a crucial step in the wildlife removal process. In many cases, such as bat or rodent control, the job cannot be performed without detailed repairs, and in all cases, sealing the entry holes shut ensures that no future wildlife will ever enter your home.
- 100% of the entry holes must be found, and sealed shut, or the job is not complete.
- Our repairs are professional contractor grade, look good, and when applicable we use steel, which rodents such as rats or squirrels are unable to chew through.
- We give a written guarantee on our repairs against any future animal entry.
ATTIC DECONTAMINATION SERVICES: It may be desirable to clean your attic after we've removed the animals. They can leave behind large amounts of droppings, urine, hair, oils, food, nesting material, and so on. These remnants can attract insects like cockroaches, and the scent left behind can encourage new animals to chew their way into your house. You might experience odor problems from the waste. It's possible that mold will grow on waste areas.
- We remove or vacuum all droppings, or remove all the soiled insulation.
- We fog the attic with a special enzyme-based cleaner that destroys any organic matter and deodorizes the space.
- We repair damage, such as ductwork, electrical wires, pipes, insulation, and more.
Armadillos and opossums can be a nightmare when they start to uproot your lawn and dig under your home, porch, or shed. These animals like to burrow under our property to build nests for their babies. If you are finding holes near your home and you think you may have a Lakeland wildlife issue, please feel free to give us a call. We answer our phones 24/7 to better service you! Our team proudly service the following cities: Auburndale, Davenport, Eagle Lake, Fort Meade, Frostproof, Lake Alfred, Lakeland, Lake Wales, Mulberry, Polk City, Dundee, Hillcrest Heights, Lake Hamilton, Winter Haven, Plant City, Haines City, and Bartow. We also service the following counties: Lake County, Osceola County, Okeechobee County, Highlands County, Hardee County, Manatee County, Hillsborough County, Sumter County, and Pasco County.
Other Lakeland animal pest control topics:
How to Kill a Raccoon
How to Get Rid of Chipmunks
The Best Opossum Repellents
Snake Prevention Tips
To learn more about our services, visit the Lakeland wildlife control home page.
This month's wildlife how-to article: How to get rid of foxes
How to get rid of foxes
Here are some of the methods you can use to get rid of foxes and a lot of other critters as well.
1. You can build fences all way around the property that nothing can get through or over or under, this is expensive but it can be done and it lasts for many many years.
2. You can scare the foxes away, foxes are shy and quite timid so anything that is sudden and scary would generally frighten them far enough away that they don't come back, and also that they don't want to come back.
3. You can buy fox repellents, but these are generally based on other predators pee and to be honest even a fox is pretty hard to convince that you have a bobcat living in the backyard no matter what he can smell. If you go to try this actually buying your own dog is much more likely to work.
4. If none of the above scare the fox away then you could try trapping the animal, you did a large trap at least 12 x 12 x 36” which is about the size of the raccoon trap which are commonly available in most hardware stores. The trap must be completely free of human scent or the fox will not come near it. Fox's generally will eventually return to the place that trapped if you relocate them so it is generally considered that a trapped fox will be disposed of, usually shot.
5. Finally if you don't want to trap the fox you could try to poison it, there are two ways of going about this, the first one is to poison some meat and leave it out for the fox but beware, this method can also kill local cats and dogs, including your own. The second way is to poison the animals the fox is hunting, like the local rat population, the fox will then eat the dead rodents and get poisoned itself.
If none of those things appeal to you then the next best suggestion is that you hire a professional to remove the fox, or try and get your local animal control to help you, they generally won't but because foxes are not considered dangerous or disease carriers which means animal control do not consider them their responsibility. In the last 30 years foxes have moved from the wilderness into urban areas along with coyotes, the reason they are doing this is because there is plenty of food for them and lots of places to live.
