The cold season is upon us, and with it come everyone’s favorite houseguests – wild animals. Now, one thing to remember as you begin to prepare your home for a wildlife invasion is that these animals are simply looking for warmth and shelter during the cold.
Indeed, the biggest reasons why wild animals are attracted to human homes is the warmth and the food. So try to treat them with understanding, and humanity. However, that doesn’t mean allowing wild animals to run wild through your home since they can create quite a lot of damage, and expose you and your family to a host of serious diseases.
So what can you do to keep wildlife out of the home?
1. Install vent screens and chimney caps.
When prepping your home against wild animals, it’s important to consider how these animals are getting inside the home, in the first place. Common entry points include holes and cracks in the walls, open windows, vents, and chimneys.
This is why experts recommend that you regularly inspect the state of your walls, vents, and chimneys, and install “gates”. Vent screens ensure that the vents work as they should, without allowing enough space for a wild animal to get through.
Similarly, chimney caps allow the smoke to exit the home while keeping out wild animals, whose nests inside the chimney can pose not only a health risk but an actual fire hazard.
2. Have an expert check damaged areas?
Many wildlife removal companies like Frank’s Wildlife Removal, also offer prevention services. This basically means that a wildlife removal professional will come into your home, and inspect it, to make sure there are no wildlife attractions or potential entry points.
If they do find such issues, they will either assist in fixing them themselves or at the very least, advise you on what to do next. Having an expert inspect the scene might be worth it if your home is in a particularly wildlife-heavy area, or if you’ve had wild animal problems before.
3. Cut out food sources.
Remember what we were saying earlier? Those wild animals are attracted to the warmth and the food inside human homes? Well, it turns out that a good way to keep wild animals out is to cut out the food sources. This can mean picking up fallen fruit in your garden, bringing pet bowls inside at night, and sealing your trash cans.
Easily accessible food is the number one reason why homes often attract wild animals. To learn more about the how and why read up on the topic on websites like micegarden.com.
Also, remember water! Pet water bowls, leaky pipes, and birdbaths, all might be responsible for a wildlife invasion.
4. Put up a fence.
A fence is an important and efficient way to prevent wild animals from entering your property. The type of fence you pick should, of course, depend on the wild animals most prevalent in your area. For instance, if you live in a particularly raccoon-heavy area, you will want to focus on raccoon prevention.
Luckily, many types of fences work in keeping out multiple types of wild animals, so you’ve got a lot of options in choosing the best type of fence for you.
5. Check for holes, and seal windows.
It’s not uncommon for your home to suffer damages, either because of the weather or from various other events. Holes and gaps in the wall, plaster, or window frames are common in most human homes, particularly in rooms that are less frequented, like the attic or basement. Unfortunately, this can create a golden opportunity for wild animals to invade.
This is why, as you prepare for nuisance wildlife season, we suggest you take your time in inspecting the state of things. Go through each room, both on the inside and outside, checking for gaps, or cracks that might allow the entry of a wild animal. Remember that even if the hole seems small and insignificant, it may still permit a smaller animal to get through. So make sure you fix it immediately.
Also remember to inspect your roof for missing shingles or holes, and fix them with materials that are difficult to chew or claw through, and resistant to bad weather.
