Your Garbage Can: Wildlife’s Greatest Attractants

Almost every neighborhood has critter problems. There are a lot of reasons why your neighborhood may be one of them, and your house could be one of the houses wild critters never fail to visit. You may not be aware of it but one of the greatest attractants in your yard could be your garbage cans.

Yes, you read that right. Your garbage bins may just be the reason why raccoons, skunks and other nuisance wildlife are always roaming around your property. Trash bins are a great source of food for these wildlife animals, and having yours left unsecured through the night makes it an easy target for them.

Unsecured garbage bins will give you a headache. Most critters move about at night when people are asleep, and they knock down trash bins in search for food. This leaves a massive litter around your house in the mornings and you'll have no choice but to clean the yard again. Aside from that, critters may decide to make a den in your home. This brings a lot of other problems that can pose serious health risks. You don't want your house to be infested since with wildlife infestation comes property damage and exposure to certain diseases.

Now, to prevent all these from happening all you have to do is secure your trash bins. This will not eliminate all possible critter infestations in the future, but it will significantly lower the chances. After all, when wildlife animals find zero opportunities for easy food in your yard, they will move on to another location that offers easier access to their food.  Make sure the lids of your garbage bins are tightly secured-- you can even use locks or a bungee cord to make sure they don't get opened even after being toppled over. Some people place heavy bricks or stones above the lids of their bins,

Securing your trash bins is a small step you can make towards having a critter-free yard and home. If you want to really make sure your house and yard stays wildlife-free, contact Niagara wildlife control services like Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control.

Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control has more than twenty-six years in expertly removing any unwanted guests from your home. They also offer different Niagara wildlife control techniques such as exclusion to ultimately seal your house away from future infestations. Make the wise choice and opt for a safe, critter-free home. Let Skedaddle professionals make it happen. Call them today!

What is nuisance wildlife?

Nuisance wildlife – we have encountered this term to often lately and this is because of the fact that there is a growing incidence of invasion of wildlife into human homes. Wildlife invasion does not pick any season or time of day. As soon as wildlife animals realize that your home has an abundant supply of food and can provide them with a warm sheltered environment, they will try to gain access and cohabitate with you. 

Creatures that have previously belonged to the wild and have become accustomed to human presence and human environment and start causing damage and harm to human health and properties can be considered nuisance wildlife. Let us give you some examples: 

1. Squirrels. These creatures come as the most common nuisance wildlife that many homeowners do not find amusing. Part of the rodent family, these tiny little creatures reproduce fast and can easily wreak havoc inside your home when they defecate and urinate in your attic, destroy you insulation and chew wires. Squirrels forage for human food as an alternative to their limited natural supply and thus, make their home inside human homes.
2. Raccoons. Known as the masked bandit, raccoons inhabit human homes especially when they are in search of a birthing place for their young – somewhere warm and cozy and away from the harsh elements of nature and other predators.
3. Birds. Birds like pigeons become nuisance wildlife when they start roost around human homes. Bird feces can corrode and stain your house and their droppings contain a lot of bacteria that can infect you and your children.
4. Bats. Like birds, bats may also find your attic conducive as a habitat. Bats may carry rabies and improper handling of these winged animals may result in more harm than good.

There are many ways of removing nuisance animals from your homes and this is where the experience and expertise of Skedaddle Niagara wildlife control come into play. Skedaddle’s Niagara wildlife control technicians are trained to chase or scare adults away so that they evict their dens. In cases where there is a litter, Skedaddle employs hands-on removal of babies and then place these young near the entry point so that the mother can collect and relocate them somewhere away from your home. 

Removing nuisance wildlife from your home is very troublesome especially if you do not have the proper knowledge or possess the right technique on how to get rid of them completely. It is best to contact Niagara wildlife control services like Skedaddle so that you can rest assured that your home is safe from any hazards and health risks that these animals can bring inside your home.

Habitat Loss: Why Wildlife Raid Your Home

Urbanization has brought men great things – from paved highways that allow us to conveniently travel from one place to another to magnificently structured buildings that serve as commercial and business areas where we spend much of our leisure time.

While we enjoy the benefits of urbanization, there is another part of the ecosystem that has greatly suffered the loss of our natural resources.

To pave way for these structural developments, we have eradicated swamps, marshes, forests and many other valuable natural resources that serve as homes to many wildlife species. While we enjoy modernization, animals have experienced a great deterioration in their natural way of life and have greatly suffered from habitat loss.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “around half of the world's original forests have disappeared, and they are still being removed at a rate 10x higher than any possible level of regrowth. As tropical forests contain at least half the Earth's species, the clearance of some 17 million hectares each year is a dramatic loss.”

It is no wonder that we see wildlife creatures beginning to invade our urban life. They simply have no choice – no more trees to build their nests in, no more safe caves to den, no more marshes that could provide them with food supply. Their next best alternative is to raid human homes for food (the ones lying around our porch or left unattended in the grabage bins) and shelter. Animal instincts gear them for survival and this is the reason why mother raccoons would occupy your attic to protect their young or squirrels and rodents would forage your pantry for food.

This is when conflict arises. At times like this, it is best to employ humane methods that would remove these unwanted animals from your home and relocate them back to the wild where they belong. Most DIY methods won’t work as these animals have been exposed to the usual tricks that homeowners employ. It is best to call professional wildlife services like Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control to address any concerns regarding wildlife.

Skedaddle Wildlife Technicians are trained to use effective but humane methods in removing these nuisance wildlife from your home. With more than twenty-six years of experience, Skedaddle has proven methods to completely remove all wildlife nesting in your property. If you encounter conflict with unwanted animals inside your home, call Skedaddle and you can rest assured that your home will be critter-free in no time!

Balancing nuisance wildlife and biodiversity

Biodiversity. Most people would leave this to the environmentalists and would not spare a second understanding its supposedly complex role in human society but we urge you to pause for a while because we are more affected than you think.

Do you understand why raccoons raid your attic? Or why rodents infest your house? We all know that these occurrences are no laughing matter but we should look back at the root cause of why this is happening and this is where the big term, biodiversity, plays a role.

Over the years, we have encroached wildlife’s natural habitat with the construction of new residential and commercial areas, pavement with new roads, and everything in between. This modernization has caused us great comfort but on the other side of the coin, an ugly reality is happening; it has destroyed animal homes and altered the balance of nature.

This is the reason why we have them now – the animals who wreak havoc on our property. The ones we call nuisance wildlife.

When you encounter these unwanted guests inside your home, it is important to understand why they are there. Do you have unattended food that draws them in? Is your house readily accessible to these creatures for them to conveniently build a den in? Taking proactive steps to make sure that we do not offer these attractants to these wildlife creatures is an important step to avoiding conflict.

But in cases when they are already inside your home, make sure that you employ humane methods in removing them from your property. Most, if not all, provinces in Canada enforce regulations on dealing with wildlife creatures and some of them are protected by law. This means that you cannot exterminate them unnecessarily. Most homeowners would resort to DIY methods and while this may be a more affordable option, it may entail risks and dangers especially when you do not have the expertise to execute these wildlife control methods properly. For example, we have encountered one too many situations where mother raccoons are trapped and relocated while their litter was left behind, stuck in the attic and dying of hunger. This cannot be a pretty sight and we strongly encourage that you study what methods will work best when dealing with wildlife.

It is always better to call Niagara wildlife control services like Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control as they are trained to efficiently remove ALL nuisance wildlife inside your home in the most humane way possible. Skedaddle’s Niagarawildlife control technicians will not only safeguard your home from these nuisance animals, they also preserve biodiversity in our communities.