Raccoons
Big, strong and good with their hands. A raccoon will tear open a roof vent or peel back shingles at a soft corner to get into a warm attic.
Sounds and signs
- Heavy thumps and walking after dark, like a person up there
- Chittering or crying in spring: that's kits
- Torn vent covers, lifted shingles, bent eavestrough
- Droppings piled in one spot on the roof or deck
Where they get in
- Roof vents and turbine vents
- Chimneys with no cap
- Soffit corners where two roof lines meet
- Under decks, porches and sheds
What we do
- A one-way door on the entry
- Kits lifted out and set by the door for their mother
- Heavy steel over the vent or soffit, a cap on the chimney
- Droppings cleaned up carefully: they can carry roundworm
Squirrels
Grey, black and red squirrels all move into Sudbury houses. They chew, and they keep office hours: busy at the start and end of the day.
- Sounds and signs
- Scratching and scampering in the ceiling at dawn and late afternoon, a rolling sound like a marble on the floor, chewed holes about the size of a golf ball in the fascia or soffit.
- Where they get in
- Gaps where the roof meets the soffit, gable vents, plumbing stacks, and the spot where a cable or pipe enters the wall.
- What we do
- A one-way door on the main hole and steel mesh on every other gap. In spring and late summer we check for a litter first. Red squirrels fit through gaps others can't, so on houses near the bush we seal tighter.
Bats
Little brown and big brown bats are the two we find in Sudbury houses. They don't chew. They slip through gaps about as wide as your finger is thick.
- Faint squeaking or scratching in a wall around dusk
- Small dark droppings that crumble to dust, stuck to siding or piled below a gap
- Brown rub marks at the edge of a gap
- Usual ways in: ridge vents, upper soffit corners, loose chimney flashing, gaps behind siding
The little brown bat is an endangered species in Ontario. We never trap or harm bats: they leave through one-way doors in the safe window from mid-August into the fall, and every bat-sized gap gets sealed after. See the timing.
Found a bat in a bedroom? Don't touch it bare-handed. Close the door, call us, and if anyone may have been bitten or touched, call public health.
Skunks
Skunks dig rather than climb. They want a dry den under a deck, porch, shed or step, and in spring that's where a mother has her kits.
Signs: a hole 10 to 15 cm wide with the dirt spread flat, a musky smell at night, and small cone-shaped holes in the lawn where they dug for grubs.
Is the hole in use? The newspaper test
- Loosely stuff the hole with crumpled newspaper at dusk.
- Check it the next morning, and the morning after.
- Paper pushed out both times means someone lives there. Don't block it, there may be kits. Call us.
We put a one-way door on the den, wait for her and the kits to go, then dig in an L-shaped steel screen around the deck so nothing tunnels back under. More on deck screening.