Everyone tries to take pride in their home and keep it safe and in good repair. You want to be free of dirt, mold and of course critters. If your home has an attic, no matter where you live in the city, suburbs, or country, you could have critters taking over your attic space. Most any animal will take the opportunity to take over a warm space close to ample food and water and safe. An attic space is safe form the elements and most predators. Here is a list of freeloading critters you are most likely to find in your attic and what to do about them. Tree squirrels top the list. They just love to run climb, and jump, and your roof is the perfect place for acrobatics. Moving into your wonderful attic is the perfect choice for these bushy tailed rats for a number of reasons.

Living in Your attic space keeps them high in the air and away from the elements and predators while keeping them near food and water. Bats love attics for maternity communities. There is lots of dry space to birth and raise their young, hidden far away from predators and the weather. The lofty attic spaces lets provide a safe, dark and cave like environment to roost during the day. Rodents like rats and mice think your attic space is close to not only food and water (yours) but it large enough to house their rapidly growing communities. Once rats and mice are established in your attic, the interior walls and HVAC vents are their superhighways.

They travel them to access to the rest of your home in search of food and water. In the late spring, the female raccoons will begin their search for a safe maternity ward to birth and raise their young. Your attic is a perfect location. The mother raccoon feels safe leaving for short trips to forage food, assured in the fact that your attic space will keep her young dry and warm, and safe from most predators. Although we could name more like birds, opossums and snakes, the above list is the most likely culprits. The methods for getting rid of all critters are pretty much the same.



You must first find all entryways no matter how small. These are going to have to be sealed to prevent reinfestation. If you want to exclude or just run off the critters, a one-way funnel or live trap will work. Leave eon e entry completely open. Attach the live trap or one-way funnel. The animal leaves and cannot come back. If you use a live trap, you must decide what to do with the trapped animal. If there is more than one (which there usually is), you must have multiple traps, or use the same one many times. If you use exclusion, funnel, the animals leave, but cannot return. This forces them to go somewhere else. You should be sure that there are not babies that need their attention before you lock them out! This is especially true of bats that are protected under the law in many places. You can also try some high tech ideas like a sonic emitter or flashing lights to drive them out.

If you decide you just want to kill them, you have the choice of poisons, or traps. Remember, if you kill them you must deal with the bodies!

Read the Pest Wildlife Home Page page for helpful information and to learn more about How to get rid of critters in your attic

How to get rid of critters in your attic