Tag Archives: possum removal
6 Steps to Keep Possums Out of Your Home
Possums are like Geminis: they’ve got two sides to their personality. Possums are cute, fluffy, native animals but we want to appreciate them from a distance. When they get too close and make your roof their home, they become noisy, destructive and smelly creatures – and all of their good traits seem to vanish in a heartbeat! So, to keep possums out of your home, keep reading. We’ve given you 6 steps you can take to stave off possums.
1. Get an inspection
Getting a professional in pest control to inspect your home is the first tip in keeping possums out of your home. These possum experts are able to identify entry points, seal them up and spot anything else that could be attracting possums or any other pest. When a professional inspects your home, you’ll have peace of mind that possums won’t be able to access your roof and make a den out of it.
2. Trim branches near your roof
Branches that hang over your roof are one of the ways that possums climb on top of it. Keeping these branches pruned at all times will decrease the odds of a possum infestation. You can do this yourself with a ladder and clippers, or simply ask your possum expert, who will be able to do this for you.
3. Repellents
There are a number of repellents available for possums. One of the most popular is Quassia chips, which repel possums with their strong scent. Buy them from your locally-owned hardware store and spread them in vulnerable areas. Possums also hate the smell of garlic, so you could place crushed cloves around the place too.
4. Motion sensor lights
Motion sensor lights on your roof are a great way to keep possums away from your home. These bright lights scare off the nocturnal possum, preventing it from checking out your roof as its next home.
5. Install a possum box
Possum boxes are a great way to coexist with possums. They create a home for your furry friend while keeping them away from your roof. This way, you can appreciate these beautiful native creatures from a good distance.
6. Plant possum-repelling plants
Possums are repelled by a number of garden plants, including mint, geraniums and chrysanthemums. Planting these plants are a two in one: they not only keep possums away, but they also make your garden look fantastic.
If you need to keep possums out of your home, it’s best to talk to the possum bosses at Peter the Possum Man. Servicing Melbourne and Adelaide, they provide their years of experience in possum control at competitive prices. Contact the team at Peter the Possum Man to keep possums out of your home for good!
How to Get Rid of Possums from Your Home
When we talk about ‘getting rid’ of possums from our homes, we don’t mean we never want to see them again. They’re beautiful creatures and they have a right to live safe, happy lives alongside our own. We simply mean we don’t want them as housemates or running amok on our roofs. There are a few great ways to get rid of possums from your home safely and humanely.
Consult an expert
The first thing to do when there are possums in your home is to consult a professional possum removalist like Peter the Possum Man. They’ll inspect your home, determine ways in which possums are gaining access, install one-way passages to let the possums out of your roof or floor without letting them back in, and then permanently block the entrances. They’ll also point out other areas of your home which allow for the entry of possums and tell you how to fix them.
Install a possum box
If you’re a lover of animals, including possums, then this is an ideal way to get possums out of your home and into your backyard. A possum removalist will need to work their magic and remove the possum from your home first. Then, they’ll be able to set up a wooden possum box in a tree in your yard. The next step is to fill the box with fresh fruit to invite the possum into its new home before your possum removalist releases it near the possum box. This way, you can appreciate your furry friends without waking up in the middle of the night to screeching, scratching and scampering on your roof.
Plants
If the main concern around possums in your home involves your garden, then we’ve got a trick you can use to get rid of them. There are plenty of plants that possums steer clear of, including geraniums, mint and prickly plants like banksias and hakeas. Plant these around your garden or veggie patch to prevent possums from making their mark on it.
Repellents
There are a few repellents that are said to be effective on possums. Garlic is one scent that possums are repulsed by. Others have reported Tabasco sauce and Quassia chips to be an effective method of getting rid of possums from your home. Consult your possum removalist to determine which repellent is best for you.
Getting rid of possums from your home may seem like a big task, but when you have help from a professional like Peter the Possum Man, it becomes a whole lot easier. They have the right equipment and expertise to solve your possum problem quickly and effectively. The team at Peter the Possum Man have over 75 years of experience in possum removal, resulting in countless happy suburban homeowners and happy possums too.
How much does it cost to remove a possum?
Possums are kind of like sharks. Well, not really. But think about sharks being amazing, beautiful creatures that are fascinating to watch, and yet you never want to get too close to them. Possums are like that: obviously, for different reasons. So, if you’ve got a possum problem in your home, it’s absolutely necessary that you hire a professional to handle it. Since it’s not a service that you pay for regularly, it’s understandable that one question is lingering in your mind… how much does it cost to remove a possum? Let’s go through a few factors that determine how much it will cost for possum removal.
The repairs that need doing
Catching and releasing a possum is easy – it’s fixing the mess that it caused which can be time-consuming. If your possum removalist inspects your home and finds that the possums have been quite polite and haven’t caused much damage, the service as a whole will cost less than if the possums were being naughty.
When possums are being naughty, they can get up to a fair bit of mischief. Roofs, ceilings and electrical wires are the most common parts of your home which possums are likely to damage. If the possums in your roof have broken roof tiles or damaged your ceiling, then a good possum removalist will be able to replace and repair where possible. This necessary service will cost a bit more to complete.
A good possum removalist will also inspect your gables. If they need repointing due to possum damage, this will also contribute to the cost of your possum removal.
The number of access points
If there are more than a single access point, then more work will need to be done and it will, in turn, cost more to effectively remove the possums. Each access point needs to be sealed off with proper equipment, materials and workmanship. Of course, all access points must be sealed, otherwise, your possum problems will persist.
Where the possums are located
Where the possums are located in your home – on the roof or under the house – determines how much the removal service will cost. There are different methods and different equipment that must be used in each circumstance, and this will affect the cost of the operation.
Who you hire
Finally, hiring the right team for the job will also affect the cost of removing a possum. The experts at Peter the Possum Man provide competitive prices for all of their services, ensuring you are permanently rid of your possum issues while saving you a buck. With over 75 years’ experience, they know that keeping customers happy lies in fair pricing and the best quality service. If you want to know how much it costs for a team of highly experienced professionals to remove possums from your home, call Peter the Possum Man for a quote and inspection today.
How do I stop possums getting on my roof?
Possums may be cute, fluffy and iconic Australian animals, but the last thing you want is for them to make your roof their home or their playground. If there’s a possum on your roof, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll know about it. The screeching, the scratching, the scampering of little feet across your roof… all these sounds are bound to wake up even the heaviest of sleepers. Luckily, there are ways you can stop possums getting on your roof and that’s what we’re going to discuss today.
Blocking off openings
A professional possum removalist will look for openings and entry points to stop possums from getting on your roof. They know where to look and know the common entry points for possums in suburban neighbourhoods. This will stop the possums from moving into your place, rent-free. Possums cause damage to your property when they move into your roof, like breaking roof tiles, chewing electrical wires and damaging ceilings. Getting a possum removalist to block the entry points will make sure that this won’t happen.
Lights with motion sensors
Your possum expert may also suggest a motion sensor-activated spotlight as a way to keep possums from getting on your roof. Possums hate bright lights. When a possum crosses the sensor, the light will activate and frighten the possum away. Talk to a possum removalist before buying one, to see whether this is a suitable option for you.
Repellents
If you’re more worried about the possums using your roof as a playground at night, then one way to stop them may be to use a repellent. Though the results of possum repellents have been inconsistent, it’s an easy and worthwhile method of trying to stop them from getting on your roof. From garden fertilizers to natural products like Quassia chips and household products like Tabasco sauce, there are a range of repellents that have been known to work on possums. Consult your possum expert before investing in a repellent.
Remove food
Possums are attracted to the smell of food. If your garbage bins are easy to access or your pet’s food is left outside, the possums are more likely to be attracted to your home and, therefore, your roof. Securing your bins and taking your pet’s food inside at night are good ways to deter possums from your home.
The best way to stop possums getting on your roof is to simply call a possum removalist like Peter the Possum Man and let them take care of it for you. A possum professional will know all the right ways to stop possums wreaking havoc on your roof. This is the only way to guarantee that your roof is free from possums, for good. Contact the expert team at Peter the Possum Man for the most effective possum proofing service.
How do I get rid of possums?
Possums may look cute and may be an Australian icon, but we should all be able to appreciate them from a distance. Having possums in your roof or underneath your floor is an irritating problem. Not only are they noisy but they can also damage your home.
Getting rid of possums from your home can be complicated. There are a few reasons why doing it yourself can be more trouble than it’s worth. So, in this post we’re going to tell you the best way to get rid of possums and why it’s best to call in a professional.
Possums are native animals
Possums being native animals doesn’t just imply that there is a strong sense of patriotism attached to them. It means there are certain laws that protect them and that indicate how you can deal with them if they’re wreaking havoc in your home. The laws differ slightly from state to state, but here’s a break down of some laws around trapping possums:
- Some states require you to have a license to trap a possum.
- You must use a cage that won’t harm the possum in the process, usually available through pest control businesses or wildlife rescue services.
- Once trapped, they must not be kept in direct sunlight or in rainy or windy conditions. They mustn’t be kept in the presence of domestic pets.
- You must release the possum on the same day it’s caught, after sunset.
- You must not release the possum more than 50 metres away from your property. It is illegal to relocate a possum as they will not survive in a new territory.
There are penalties for breaking the rules
Breaking any of these rules around trapping and releasing possums can result in fines. We’re not talking about a slap on the wrist either; breaking these laws can result in a fine of up to $7,500. So while it is possible to trap and release possums on your own, it may not even permanently solve your possum problem, and further, getting it wrong could cost you, big time.
Permanently getting rid of possums in a safe, ethical and cost-effective way
The best way to get rid of possums from your home is simple: call a professional possum removalist. An expert possum removal team like the one at Peter the Possum Man will talk you through the process of making sure your possums are kept away from your house for good. This involves locating the possum nest, blocking off entry points to your roof or under your floor, trapping the possums and releasing them safely. Then, you can appreciate our native bush critters without them being too close. The team at Peter the Possum Man have over 75 years’ experience in removing possums, so to get rid of your possum issues, give them a call today.
Finding the best possum deterrent
Possums are often seen as major pests due to the damage they can cause and disease that they can spread. There’s no doubt if you have a possum in your roof or walls it can cause major issues and keep you awake at night. Not to mention the damage that they can cause to your garden and trees. But its important to also remember that in Victoria and South Australia there are 13 protected species of possums including the common brushtail possum and its super cute ringtail cousin.
Peter The Possum Man loves possums!
Its a common misconception that capturing a possum and moving it to another location will get rid of your possum troubles. Usually when this happens the poor possum starves to death as its often released into a foreign territory where they are unable to compete with the possums already established there and other possums will just move in to replace the one that you have removed. It’s also illegal to move possums more than 50 metres from your building (under the Wildlife act 1975). At Peter The Possum Man we treat captured possums gently and respectfully to ensure that they are not put under any more stress than is necessary. When we release them we look for suitable trees to release them into. If suitable trees cannot be found we can supply a Possum Box. Finally the most important thing is to ensure the possum cannot return to your roof and so we block all entry points.
How to get rid of possums
Possums are naturally found throughout Australian suburbs and as they are a protected species under the Wildlife act 1975 which prohibits trapping or eradication without a license, they can be a difficult pest to remove which can damage your property and spreads disease.
This means the best way of removing them is to Peter the Possum Man on 1300933789 as we are fully licensed to catch and remove possums from your property.
Once caught caged possums are released on site in accordance with the conditions of our Wildlife Control License which recognises that possums generally do not survive relocation.
Possum Deterrent
Once possums have been removed from your building we make sure all entry points are blocked and inaccessible. Its important to setup an alternative for the possum so nesting boxes can be used if they don’t have an appropriate alternative.
Urban Aussies have this little problem living with possums
MELBOURNE, Australia
After a night of noisy sex, heavy breathing, snarling spats and much scampering to and fro, the couple upstairs settles into a sunrise slumber as our bleary-eyed homeowner is roused from a fitful sleep by a smell that isn’t fresh-brewed coffee.
Enough already! It’s time to call Peter the Possum Man, a point guard in Melbourne’s ongoing marsupial mayhem. But Peter’s six trucks are already out this morning, responding to other complaints. Competitors, including Paul the Possum Catcher, Shield Pest & Weed Control’s “Possum. Removal Specialists,” and an outfit called Possoff, are also at work.
Urbanized Aussies
Demographers say that Australia is the least densely populated and most highly urbanized nation on earth. Contrary to movies, and myth, few of its 17 million people are at home in the Outback, the continent’s vast, dry, empty interior. Nearly nine of 10 of them cluster in coastal cities, worlds away from the dingoes, dunnies and didgeridoos of the bush. Forget those wild dogs, outhouses and aboriginal wind instruments. Forget “Crocodile Dundee” Paul Hogan, the actor who plays him in the movies, grew up in a Sydney suburb. Consider television’s Dame Edna “Hellooo Possums” Everage. Barry Humphries, the actor who plays her in drag as, in his words, a “silly, bigoted, ignorant, self satisfied Melbourne housewife,” grew up in Melbourne’s suburbs, loathing the burbs.
Real possums, on the other hand, love Aussie suburbia, thriving at four or five times the density they do in the bush. Probably nowhere in the world do so many people and possums dwell in such propinquity as they do in the leafy house and garden suburbs of Melbourne, on Australia’s verdant south coast. What runaway deer populations are to America’s Eastern suburbs, stay at home possums are to Melbourne. Residents, who number 3.2 million, either loathe them or love them. Tourists are crazy about them.
Possums-the most common are brush-tails and ringtails prefer dwelling in hollows in big, old trees. But such holes are rare in town except in parks. So any hole in a roof that is as big as a tennis ball is an open invitation for possums to take up residence. And once ensconced, they rearrange the insulation, chew up wiring, stain walls and stink up the place with their foul-smelling urine. Being nocturnal, they eat and boogie at night.
What’s more, the law is on their side. Australia has about two dozen species of possums. Ranging from cat size to coon size, they are furrier and cuter than their hairy American cousins, named opossums by Indians in Virginia and described in 1612 by Capt. John Smith as having “a head like a swine and a tail like a rat.” Aussie possums are protected by Australia’s Wildlife Act of 1975. No trapping or eradicating is allowed without a license. And such permits are increasingly hard to come by because, here in the state of Victoria, the Department of Conservation and Environment has adopted a people-possum coexistence policy and has begun a “Living With Possums” campaign.
“Possum wise, I reckon we now get around 80 calls a week,” says Brian W. Adams, general manager of Peter the Possum Man, which isn’t a real person but rather a 25 year old subsidiary of Adams Pest Control Pty. Ltd. Callers inevitably begin, “Hello, Peter?”
“A lot of Johnny come latelies have gotten into the business,” he says. “Most just catch possums and take them away. Any fool can do that.” The talent, he says, is in finding their holes and possum proofing the roof. He guarantees it for a year.
Enter possum sleuth Bob Turra. In his ninth year of spotting possum holes and estimating remedy costs for Peter the Possum Man, he guides a visitor across the tin roof of a house in Footscray, a working class suburb. Its underside is riddled with access holes and stains.”See that greasy stuff it’s body oil,” he says. “That’s where they’re getting in. See over here. Rats. And look at that hair. Cats, too. She’s got quite a menagerie up here. No wonder it’s noisy.” He estimates trapping, repair and follow up at $350. The homeowner, insulted about the rats, decides against it.
Until last fall, professional possum catchers could turn their catches over to animal shelters for relocation. They did so at the rate of more than 5,000 annually. Do it yourselfers could borrow cages from townships and do likewise.
Dying In the Wild
Then Ian Temby became Victoria’s wildlife damage control officer and found, he says, that “over 90% of the relocated possums died in a matter of hours or a few days from predators and “Stress.” Soft suburban possums simply couldn’t hack it in the bush.
So Mr. Temby is trying to phase out the practice. He has written letters to town ships urging them to stop lending out cages. He wrote a book called “Living With Wildlife,” and he started the “Living With Possums” campaign. The idea, he says, is for residents to build possum housing in their trees that looks like over sized birdhouses.
Peter the Possum Man sells possum apartments for $65. But Mr. Adams notes that it isn’t easy to talk a client into buying a house for an animal that has trashed his own. But, writes Mr. Temby, “relocation of a possum from its territory simply creates a vacant territory that is likely soon to be occupied by another possum.”
Besides, goes the current ecological thinking, possums were here first. For about 65 million years before man arrived. Australia was one vast Jurassic Park for possums and other marsupials, including kangaroos, wombats, koalas, bandicoots, wallabies and 100 or so other species (not to mention two monotremes, “the platypus and the spiny anteater, which lay eggs). Marsupials are primitive mammals that raise their premature young in belly pouches (in contrast to placental mammals, which raise fetuses in wombs).
Displaced Marsupials
Isolated by oceans from landmasses where heartier placental mammals evolved and eliminated most marsupials, Australian marsupials thrived and diversified. About 30,000 years ago, aboriginal humans arrived, bringing a placental carnivore, the dingo. Beginning in the 18th century, Europeans brought their sheep, cattle, cats, rats, foxes and rabbits. Marsupials were slaughtered to make way. In 1906, some four million Australian possum skins were exported to London and New York. In 1932, a million possum pelts were marketed as “Adelaide chinchilla.” Eight years ago, possum skins brought $1 million to licensed hunters in the state of Tasmania. In 1990, they got only $150,000.
The 1975 wildlife law was a godsend for marsupials and other native animals. But some Aussies have been nurturing them since long before it was adopted. For example, Graham Cochran, a 77 year old pensioner who lives alone, has been feed¬ing the possums in Yarra Park near the Melbourne Cricket Ground nightly for 35 years. He figures he has missed only about 20 feedings in all that time.
Each afternoon around 5:30, he gets 22 loaves of leftover bread from an Italian bakery near his apartment and strips off the hard crust (because, as a boy, he didn’t like crust) and wets the bread into doughy balls. At about 8:30, he drives his battered old Holden sedan to the park and wheels a shopping cartload of bread from tree to tree, feeding dozens of possums. They know to expect him.
“I named this one Stubby,” Mr. Cochran says, feeding some bread to an eager possum with shortened brush tail. “He’s me mate.”
