Roofer -vs- Wildlife Removal Company

Who do you call first if a raccoon made a hole in your roof? Over the years we’ve learned many valuable “tricks of the trade” & important lessons on how to humanly deal with nuisance wildlife such as squirrels, skunks, pigeons, and raccoons.

• Wildlife Removal Company – The best approach is to hire a wildlife control company first. You’ll be dealing with your animal problem humanely and efficiently. You’ll also save a lot of money and potentially more damage created by the animals by not hiring a roofer first. At times the best approach is to work in conjunction with a roofer and a wildlife control company. A good example is if you’re planning on getting a new roof. If your roof is in poor condition with many soft spots easily penetrated by raccoons it can be hard to keep them out for a minimal cost. A good plan of attack, in this case, is to have a one-way door installed in the soffit as long as the raccoon can access this new exit hole. At this point, you can have the roofers replace the roof without the risk of trapping the animals inside the attic. Of course, we always consider variables such as baby season before offering this approach.

Affordable Pest Control Tips For Greater Toronto Area Homeowners

• Roofer – Homeowners are more likely to already have a roofer that they know and trust so It’s only natural to call them first.. If you do hire a roofer for wildlife damage the most they should do is partiality block the hole if it’s a spot that might leak. This will buy some time until a wildlife removal company gets onsite, without the risk of trapping animals inside. One common mistake is to have the roofer change all the perfectly good roof vents from plastic to metal. If the roofer finds that a squirrel or raccoon has made a hole in one of the plastic vents they might recommend swapping all of them for metal ones. However, no roof vent is animal proof and raccoons and squirrels can easily bust through and chew holes in the aluminum/metal. Sometimes the raccoon is forced to bust out of the new vent after being trapped inside. So in the end you end up hiring a wildlife removal company anyway and paying a lot more. Most wildlife removal companies are prepared to change damaged roof vents but also add heavy gauge steel screening overtop of each of the existing roof vents making them 100% animal proof and chew resistant.

• Raccoon Removal Problems – Are raccoons getting smarter?

• SkunkRemoval Problems – Skunk in the attic anyone?
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SKUNKS DONT CLIMB! BUT it’s not impossible for one to get into an attic. I can say personally I’ve only heard of this situation once because skunks aren’t big climbers, but the average person thinks skunks climb, probably from watching too many Pepe La Pew reruns. The layout of the house plus the fact the skunk was locked in a wall is the reason it ended up in the attic. A DIY Wildlife Kit ordered online does not come with the experience of a professional installer and when things go wrong because you assumed the noise you heard in the attic was a raccoon but the actual skunk that’s in there can’t climb down or even get out of the raccoon one-way door, you may unwittingly quote Pepe by saying “I am stupid. No.” We have removed many dead skunks from properties and can tell you they smell pretty bad. It would be a hard lesson learned to have to crawl around in the attic following your nose to the “pew” to find the dead skunk, or paying a company what it likely would have cost in the first place to have it professionally removed.

• Bird Removal Problems – Are Black Starlings returning to your house every year?