Can I expect help from city or county animal services for my opossum issue?



If you’ve never had an opossum raid your home before, you’re probably going to panic the first time you see one skulking around in your shed. You don’t know the first thing about dealing with a wild animal, let alone an opossum. At this moment you’d probably decide it would be best to hand this matter over to the authorities. Your city/county has a dedicated animal control department after all. Surely, they’ll be able to handle this mess, right?

Probably not
If you were hoping the animal control department would swoop in save the day, you’re quite mistaken. The thing is, 90% of these departments are trained and licensed to catch and control cats and dogs, but only cats and dogs. Maybe they’d take care of the occasional raccoon for you, but that’s about it. When it comes to other animals, be they rats, groundhogs, armadillos, and yes opossums, they really can’t offer you much regarding service. The most they do for you is rent you a cage which you can use to trap the animal that’s currently bothering you, not coming over to do it themselves. That’s probably not what you wanted to hear since that means your opossum problem is now far more difficult to solve. Still, your situation is still far from desperate. Here’s what you need to do.

Analyze your situation
The first step to taking action against an opossum is to size up the problem. How many opossums appear to have taken board at your house? How did they get in? How long has it been since the infestation started? All of these questions will help you determine the severity of your predicament, and whether you should try and solve it yourself (Option A) if it’s one of a relatively smaller scale, or call the wildlife removal experts (different from animal control authorities) to come to take care of the situation (Option B) if the situation seems like one you can’t handle on your own.

Option A - Try and solve it yourself
The braver choice, since it involves you getting your own hands dirty trying to solve the problem. However, the task isn’t as daunting as it seems. Just use a cage trap with bait to capture the animal, and then use the trap to transport it someplace far away from your home for relocation. Nothing to it.

Option B - Call wildlife professional
This is the responsible choice to make if you’re looking at a full-on infestation of opossums in your home. Sure, depending on the specific service you hire, you might have to pay a considerable amount, but the payoff is definitely worth it; the experts will not only remove the opossums from your premises, but will also do a thorough scan of your home, and make sure you don’t have any such problems in the future.

Go back to the Westminster wildlife removal home page.