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Professional Opossum Control Serving Orlando & Central Florida

Orlando Opossum Control

Opossums, or possums as some people call them, are probably the fourth most common nuisance animal that we deal with. They can cause problems both as scavengers and when they break into homes:
  • Opossums living in attic
  • Opossum under house or bathtub
  • Dead opossum removal
  • Opossum stealing pet food
Opossums are opportunistic and omnivorous scavengers. I trap and remove them from under people's sheds or homes. However, opossums frequently enter attics, which is a bigger problem.
 


Opossums in the Attic: Opossums frequently take up residence in the attic of a home. Possums are great climbers. They have opposable thumbs and prehensile tails, and can easily climb up to roofs of homes. There, they break in, often through an open eave gap area. An attic is a warm, dry, safe place for an opossum to live. The most common time of year that I get opossums in attics is during the spring, usually May or June, when a mother opossum has young. Many opossums are nomadic, but females with young seem to establish a home range and a den site. They really like attics. A very common problem that I deal with during the late spring and summer months is that of young opossums falling down the walls of homes. They explore the attic, a gap leads down a wall, and down they fall. Once down, they scratch around, and if not removed, they die and cause a terrible odor. In the attic itself, the animals not only create a lot of noise, they create a big mess, destroying insulation and defecating everywhere.

Opossums Under the House: I also commonly deal with opossums living under homes. One of the most common things that they do is crawl under an elevated house (which are common in Florida) and then they find a gap under the house, and crawl up. They crawl up walls, and very often they find a gap by the water drainage pipe of a first floor bathtub. They love to live in such an area, and I get many calls about strange scratching sounds coming from under the bathtub. The scratching is of course from an opossum. They also often die under the bathtub areas, and are a pain in the butt to remove.

Parasites and Diseases: Most of the times that I deal with opossums in homes, whether in an attic or under a raised house, the homeowner starts to find fleas in the home. The fleas can not only infest pets and bite humans, but spread various disease. Furthermore, when possums live in an attic, they leave a heck of a lot of waste up there. I've seen some attics that were regular toilets - hundreds of large, dog-sized droppings covering much of the attic. Opossums are not clean animals, and they poop everywhere. This contamination is not sanitary, and can cause health risks inside a home.

Opossums as Scavengers: Opossums will eat anything they find, including rotting meat. They really seem to like pet food. If you leave pet food outside, opossums will find it. I get several calls each year about opossums threatening house pets. Sometimes opossums will simply live under a shed or deck, and raid nearby garbage, fruit trees, or things like that. Sometimes people want me to relocate these animals, in order to avoid the aggravation of having the pet dog go crazy every night because there's an opossum on the property.


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