Critters Under the House-Arrrgh!

[steamloco76]

My home (manufactured) is set with just a crawl space underneath. Very, very low crawl space. Critters find a way under no matter what I've tried. I don't care about the rabbits, however I draw the line at cats and opossums!

Several years ago I had to trap an entire family of opossums and shoot a HUGE, mean male opossum which had torn the aluminum skirting and was trying to get to the babies! A neighbor who lived across the street heard the shots and called the cops on me. When they saw the size of the critter, they just laughed and said they would shoot it too.

Fast forward to this summer. Have had multiple nights of disturbed sleep from critters clawing under the skirting or banging around underneath. Saw a pretty good sized opossum in the yard a couple of times, so I figured that was the noisy critter under the place.
I set my medium sized havaheart live trap but couldn't catch anything. Friday I went to tractor supply and bought a large and a small live trap. Set them in my carport and baited them with rotisserie chicken scraps.
Saturday morning, I had a feral cat in the small trap. Had to take it to the animal shelter. Mean little cuss!
Last night around 10PM I caught the opossum in the large trap. Big, ugly, stinky female. She is now permanently relocated in 'possum kingdom!
Hopefully I won't get another critter for a good long time!

 

[LVSteve]

All of a sudden the rubbish build standard of my house on a slab doesn't seem so bad.

 

[ColbyBruce]

Throw a tarp over the trap and stick a pipe from the exhaust pipe of one of your vehicles under the tarp. Run your engine a while, problem solved.

This is about the safest way to get a skunk out of a trap.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I moved to a condo. After 33 years of a war with raccoons I am free at last. Well it seems that the local wildlife includes raccoons too. The 2 that seemed to harass my unit have been dispatched, but not by me!

We have a 19'x19' enclosed "Back yard" that is 50% concrete. So Dangerous Diane has planted a garden in the clay for the second year now! Out Roma tomatoes were being consumed on the vine! More raccoons? No! Chip & Dale come through at about 25 MPH and take bites! A Victor Rat trap, baited with peanut butter, has put an end to Chip & Dale & Dale Jr. We are again enjoying the fruits of our labors! There are 2 enclosed patios to the south and 4 to the north, but nobody seems to grow anything to distract vermin from out patio. (The young blond girl just north of us covered her entire enclosed area with pavers. She grows nothing , only sunbathes- with or without a suit- which causes a whole different type of vermin!) [Forum rules forbid pictorial proof!]

Ivan

 

[Watchdog]

I moved to a condo. After 33 years of a war with raccoons I am free at last.

There are 2 enclosed patios to the south and 4 to the north, but nobody seems to grow anything to distract vermin from out patio.

(The young blond girl just north of us covered her entire enclosed area with pavers. She grows nothing , only sunbathes- with or without a suit...)

How do you know this?

I take it you have looked on more than one occasion...hence the "with" and "without" observation.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My wife and I have literally never talked with her. She ignores friendly waves and the like, She has a very bright red swim suit. She sometimes gets tired of it and it flies towards the door, but usually catches on the deck rail. Life in town is very different from the country!

Ivan

 

[Watchdog]

She has a very bright red swim suit. She sometimes gets tired of it and it flies towards the door, but usually catches on the deck rail.
Ivan

 

[susieqz]

not sure i would have removed the cat.
it might be a pain but keeps worse things out.
since my feral cat moved in, i haven't trapped a single mouse in my garden.
before, it was 2 or 3 every week.

 

[tops]

Throw a tarp over the trap and stick a pipe from the exhaust pipe of one of your vehicles under the tarp. Run your engine a while, problem solved.

This is about the safest way to get a skunk out of a trap.

I don't know what went wrong but I tried that and let the truck run for 15 min. I used a long pole with a hook to remove the tarp and he was still alive. The .22 worked. Larry

 

[gman51]

A friend of mine had some animal getting into the kitchen and eating whatever it found in the kitchen. Like dog food or potato chips. I set a trail cam in the kitchen but we never saw a pic of the critter.
I set up a live trap and caught an opossum on the second night. The critter had been coming through a hole under the kitchen sink cabinet. Those are one big ugly looking rat. Gee granny what big teeth you have. 22LR ended it kitchen raids.

If I had a neighbor that sunbathed without a suit I wouldn't be here near as often. LOL

 

[SweetMK]

For groundhogs, I use apple slices,,,

I borrowed several type of dog food from a neighbor, for a trial,,
in my trapping, cat food is better than dog food.

I think the cat food (all dry type, cat or dog) has a stronger smell.

I may try the potato chips,, I haven't tried that.

A hard core bait for raccoons (or possums) is a can of tuna.
I get the cans that need a can opener, then only 1/3 open the can.

The smell drives them crazy.

If you put whole corn in the trap, you will catch,,,

Yes, that is a crow, I have caught three this year.
Careful setting of the trap "sear" is required to catch the crows.

Raccoons are also easily trapped with a Duke Coon Trap,

[ame]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KW3AY6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1[/ame]

I do not know how to live release a raccoon from a Duke.
My neighbor uses a 2X4 about 3 feet long. No noise!!

One other thing,, trapping seems to be cyclic.
Catch a bunch now, you may not catch one for 3-6 months.

After a good month of trapping, nothing will even take food out of the cats dish over night.

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

Go to wally world and buy 2/3 boxes of moth balls....Randomly throw/distribute them all over under your house....Critters hate smell and will vacate the premises......

 

[gman51]

If you throw moth balls under the house you might get a few letters from AARP. They might think some old people live there.

Mentioning crows....did you know there are hardly ever any crows killed by cars but many are killed by trucks. Crows always have a lookout Crow to warn of danger. Scientist have found crows can warn of oncoming cars but not trucks. Crows can't speak the word truck, they can only say cah to warn other crows.

 

[Stevens]

My wife and I have literally never talked with her. She ignores friendly waves and the like, She has a very bright red swim suit. She sometimes gets tired of it and it flies towards the door, but usually catches on the deck rail. Life in town is very different from the country!

Ivan

Sounds like Drone Time
Steve W

 

[billwill]

Ivan....what power binoculars do you prefer?

 

[mtgianni]

I would make sure that your entire mobile is framed underneath with 2x4" on a frame and 24" centers. Then screw the skirting with 3-4 screws at every riser. The ground should be at least to the bottom of the skirting with no gaps and if necessary run chicken wire along the skirting and covered with soil to prevent digging. That is how we set them up 40+ years ago.

 

[kraynky]

I was having problems catching my own cats while trying to trap the possum that was bullying them and eating their cat food every night. A friend of mine said "Use vanilla wafers." Danged if I didn't end up with 8-10 of them rascals before they stopped showing up. They were all released out back in the woods, and then shot trying to escape. Well, I did get cocky that one time with my .41 magnum BH, trying to draw and shoot as he was escaping. He got away.

But those traps and 'niller wafers do the trick. No more cats in the trap.

Waiting on photo documentation from Ivan .......

 

[Kinman]

Skunks are the absolute all time blue winning mouse catcher ever...they only work at night and sleep all day. I knew a family that had a pet skunk named "Kitty" she was a lovely animal, you knew there was a skunk in the area but I never found it offensive. She had never been de-scented and grew up with big family of kids and dogs, nobody ever knew of her spraying anybody or anything. They never had any mice, no cats either...might have been a problem between skunks and cats but she got along well with the dogs, probably because she only came out a night.
I got sprayed by a skunk when I was a kid because my uncle Norman told me if I held it up by the tail it took its shooter out of gear, "Just reach in thar and grap him up by the tail Dickey, take him out back and throw him off in the bush." Well sir I reached in and grabbed him by the tail and lifted him up in the air, true he did not spray me because a skunk has to brace himself to squirt, thats what they are doin while dancin around they are gettin set to brace and fire and have to wait a little bit to reload if they give you a full shot. The problem I had was that I was only about 7-9 years old and that old skunk weighed a good 20lbs or so and he got heavy, I was holding him up but got tired and he grabbed my leg, BANG. It didn't help that grandma's old german shephard Sneaky was barking and bouncing around but we both got nailed real good. We sat outside on the porch for a couple days, even at meal times because we stank so bad, grandma tried all the old timey cures like tomato juice, although all she had was canned tomatoes so she mashed all that up and rubbed it on both dog and I, it was a good lesson and grandma told me I should never listen to uncle Norman.
Oddly though...To this day I am not bothered in the least by the smell of skunks, in fact in the last dregs of winter I look forward to the first hint of skunk because it is a kind of sign that Spring ain't too far behind because they come out of their den like a bear to do a little hunting and also to check up on each other for mating purposes.

 

[steamloco76]

Go to wally world and buy 2/3 boxes of moth balls....Randomly throw/distribute them all over under your house....Critters hate smell and will vacate the premises......

And if the smell permeates the residence above, it drives you out as well.

 

[steamloco76]

Critter trap update. So, the female opossum I trapped had a litter of young possums. Trapped and "relocated" four so far using stale rotisserie chicken for bait. I also have a second feral cat to take to the animal shelter. Why can't people get their !!! Felines spayed and neutered.

The cat problem in my neighbor is 90% the fault of one senior woman. She leaves the door to her shed partially open and puts cat food and water out for "all the poor homeless kitties". They breed, and breed, and breed. The town police used to trap cats. A few years ago nearly one hundred feral or stray cats were trapped in a town of just 2500 residents. Now the cops don't set traps and we are overrun with cats.