Squirrels in Richmond Attics: Get Rid of Squirrels in Homes: Squirrel Trapping & Removal: Trapping Squirrels in Richmond, VA Attics

September 11, 2011 admin Animal Damage, Charlottesville, Henrico, Richmond, Squirrel Control, Squirrel Removal, Squirrel Trapping, Squirrels, Squirrels in the Attic, Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services

Squirrels In Attics – Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia, VA – (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975

There are squirrels in my attic. Yikes! It is actually extremely common for squirrels in Richmond or Charlottesville Virginia to enter houses, primarily in attics. Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services has the professional solutions necessary to get squirrels out of attics and keep them from re-entering the attics of your home. Squirrels in attics can cause damage if the problem remains unaddressed.

Why Do Squirrels Go in Attics?

squirrels in attics Squirrels in Richmond and Charlottesville Virginia currently have litters of newborns two times a year, once in the springtime and once in the fall season, they are continuously hunting for protected areas to make their nests. Squirrels get in the attic simply by chewing holes from the outside, typically above gutters, or at building gaps where dormers meet the roofline. They may also attain entry to attics by simply chewing corners of trim or almost any other weak area that enables them entry into the attic space. Contact us to humanely trap, remove , capture and control squirrels that have entered your Richmond or Charlottesville, Virginia home or business.

Contact us today at (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975 to safely & humane trap, remove, capture and control squirrels in attic. We can also repair the squirrel damage to keep them out! Visit us on the web at Virginia Wildlife Removal & Animal Control.

Getting Rid of Moles in Richmond & Charlottesville — Not Easily Done

February 16, 2011 admin Animal Damage, Charlottesville, Golf Courses, Henrico, Moles, Richmond, Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services

Moles Removal in Richmond & Charlottesville, VA — No Easy Answer
Forget the ground hog, there’s one sure sign spring is on the way popping up in yards all over Richmond and Charlottesville Virginia — mole tunnels. Though moles tunnel actively all year in Richmond and Charlottesville, the tunnels they make in spring and fall are usually more obvious because they are closer to the soil surface. Unfortunately there is no easy, fast solution to rid a yard of moles. Instead, effective mole control relies on patience, persistence, and a little knowledge about their habits and behaviors.

The Ways of Moles in Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia
Moles generally lead solitary lives in Richmond and Charlottesville and are believed to be fairly territorial. Adult moles reproduce once a year, with females giving birth to between two to five babies in spring.

These young moles strike out on their own when they reach five to six weeks old. Though homeowners often think they have multiple moles living in their yards, this is often not the case. Extensive damage can be caused by one mole, which may create up to 150 feet of new tunnel each day.

Mole Control Options For Richmond and Charlottesville
There are a plethora of home remedies touted for mole control — unfortunately none of them work. Many commercially available products, such as sonic vibration devices and castor bean repellents, have not been scientifically shown to have any effect either. In reality mole control is very difficult and even if you get rid of the mole living in your yard right now there is nothing stopping a new one from moving in. The problem is the conditions where grass grows best, where the soil is well drained, loose, and reasonably fertile, are also the conditions preferred by moles.

Reducing the amount of insects in the soil by broadcasting pesticides throughout your lawn is sometimes touted as way to reduce mole damage, but this is rarely effective and not recommended. Most soil applied pesticides target specific insects, such as white grubs or mole crickets. Moles, on the other hand, eat a wide array of insects with earthworms being one of their favorite foods. Most lawn insecticides do not kill earthworms, which is a good thing because earthworms are highly beneficial to lawns and gardens. In some cases treating your lawn with pesticides can even increase mole activity in the short term because moles will have to tunnel further to find enough insects to eat.

The most effective mole control method is trapping, but successfully trapping moles takes time and patience. Two types of traps are available, live traps and kill traps. To use either successfully you must first find out which tunnels your mole is actively using by mashing them down each day and checking the next day to see which ones have popped back up. Traps should be set in the tunnels that are popped back up and checked daily. Both have their drawbacks — kill traps can be difficult to use and dangerous, while with live traps you must do something with the captured animal. Another option is to hire a wildlife damage control company like Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, LLC to come and trap the moles for you. We provide mole removal, mole control and mole trapping services in Richmond and Charlottesville, VA. Call us today at (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975 for all of your animal wildlife pest removal problems.

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Who Do I Call If I Have A Nuisance Wildlife Pest Problem In Charlottesville Or Richmond, Virginia?

January 20, 2011 admin Animal Attacks, Animal Damage, Bats, Beavers, Charlottesville, Distemper, Foxes, Golf Courses, Henrico, Histoplasmosis, Moles, Odor Control, Odor Removal, Opossums, Rabies, Raccoons, Removing Animals From Chimneys, Richmond, Skunk Odor, Skunk Odors, Skunks, Snakes, Squirrels, Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, Voles, White Nose Syndrome, WNS

If you own a home or business in Charlottesville or Richmond, Virginia, you know that dealing with strange animals is never any fun. And if you don’t have experience in the matter, you need to seek out an expert for help—a company like Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, LLC.

If you’re having trouble with critters showing up on your Charlottesville or Richmond property, contact Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services fast. We know what to do to rid your home or business of its animal troubles.

As a wildlife control company, we are going to make a point to figure what type of animal we’re dealing with before proceeding with any course of action. For instance, you may have trash scattered around your yard every night, but cannot figure out what’s causing the mess. It could be something as simple as a cat, or, on the other hand, it could be a raccoon. It’s hard to figure out what it is if you aren’t an expert. A professional company like ours will know what to do to determine the type of animal that’s at the root of the problem.

Once our wildlife control experts discover what animal is causing all the issues, then it’s a matter of finding out how the animal is getting onto the property. Many times, animals can dig under fences or get in through the smallest cracks or crevices. Our professionals will know how to narrow down the possibilities as far as entry onto the property. As a result, we will keep this in mind when going through the process of how best to keep animals out.

The hardest part of wildlife control is catching the animal. Some animals are easier to catch than others. There are various methods involved in catching wild animals. The thing that our professionals know is that different animals call for different methods of capture. For instance, if the issue involves a snake, our experts are not going to use the same tactics that we would use to catch a possum; and vice versa. The bottom line is that hiring an experienced company like ours will save you time, money and offer peace of mind.

After the animal is caught, it’s essential that our wildlife control specialists properly seal off the opening where the animal is getting in. This way, you can rest assured that the animal doesn’t get in from that location again. Also, our specialists can help in identifying and preventing animals from entering from new locations.

When dealing with critters, you want to make sure whoever handles the problem offers a guarantee. Nothing’s worse than thinking you have all those pests squared away, only to wake up one morning and see one of those same critters staring you in the face. If you’re dealing with a professional company like Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, we will offer a guarantee that the nuisance will be gone or we’ll come out again to remedy the problem.

When you know you have a critter roaming through your Charlottesville or Richmond property, you won’t rest until it’s gone. That’s why you want a wildlife control service company like Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services. We use the most humanely efficient methods to rid your home or business of animal pest problems.

Some of the services we offer Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia homes and businesses include bat removal, bat control, beaver removal, beaver trapping, bird removal, bird control, squirrel removal, squirrel trapping, raccoon removal, raccoon trapping, skunk removal, skunk trapping, snake removal, snake trapping, opossum removal, opossum trapping, groundhog removal, groundhog trapping, mole removal, mole control, fox trapping, fox removal, coyote trapping, coyote removal, chipmunk trapping, chipmunk removal, and turtle trapping and turtle removal. Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, LLC is licensed and insured and provides 24/7 service to home owners and businesses. Call (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975 to have us solve your wildlife problem.

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Expert: Snake could have climbed door

December 5, 2010 admin Animal Attacks, Snakes

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 4 (UPI) — A herpetologist says a Louisiana man who claims to have been bitten by a snake hiding in a wreath hanging on his door may be telling the truth.

David Steen, a Florida graduate student and author of a blog on reptiles, told The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune he thinks the snake that bit — or did not bite — Marc Jones of St. Tammany Parish could have been a Texas rat snake. The snakes, despite their name, also live in Louisiana.

Steen said Texas rat snakes are excellent climbers, famed for their ability to climb vertical brick walls looking for food. One could have gotten to the wreath.

Jones says he was bitten on the head in October when he opened the door for a parcel delivery. The story has gone viral online.

“In contrast to many ‘unbelievable’ stories I receive via e-mail, I actually believe this one,” Steen said.

Call us at (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975 for expert Snake Removal, Snake Control and Snake Trapping in Central Virginia including the Richmond VA and Charlottesville VA areas.

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Squirrels nesting in your Charlottesville or Richmond Virginia home for the winter?

December 5, 2010 admin Charlottesville, Henrico, Richmond, Squirrels

As we turn up the heat to beat the cold temperatures, squirrels are trying to do the same thing. Squirrels will leave their leafy homes behind in the wintertime and go somewhere warmer like a hollow tree or your Richmond or Charlottesville Virginia house.

Squirrels don’t realize that they are going into your house. They see a weak/rotten spot in the house, and in the eyes of the squirrel that’s a really good hollow tree to make home for the winter.

The best way to prevent squirrels from getting into your house is by taking care of the structure of the house and doing regular maintenance. If you’re already having a problem with squirrels, or other pest control problems, contact Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services at (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975.

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Removing and Controlling Moles and Voles on Richmond, Virginia and Charlottesville Virginia Golf Courses

October 16, 2010 admin Charlottesville, Golf Courses, Moles, Richmond, Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, Voles

Mole Removal & Trapping in Central VA

(434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975

We currently offer ongoing mole trapping and vole control programs for golf courses, and in taking over the mole control on these courses either from the maintenance crews or from other independent contractors, we have repeatedly seen several key factors that often cause mole and vole control programs on golf courses to fail. All the courses we do have had mole and/or vole control programs of one form or another in place before bringing us on, but none of them had achieved the kind of near 100% control that is possible with the implementation of an optimized trapping program. Listed below are several of what we feel to be the most important factors in determining success.

1. Trapping vs. Fumigation and Baiting of Moles

There is a common misconception that trapping is not as efficient as poisons when dealing with large populations of moles and voles as often exist on golf courses. Nothing could be further from the truth–we’ve seen many courses where populations of hundreds of moles and voles survived poisoning efforts, but were quickly brought down to near zero with an optimized trapping program.

The success of poisons varies widely depending on soil composition and moisture content. Soils that are on the sandy or dry side allow the poisons to diffuse into the soil, and you simply don’t build up a sufficient concentration to kill the moles and voles. And baiting and fumigation are completely ineffective in controlling moles, as their long narrow tunnels make it even less likely that fumigants will build up to lethal levels in their tunnel system.

Trapping can be a devastatingly effective control technique. It’s also a relatively hassle free from a regulatory perspective. No pesticides to buy and store, and no pesticide permits, licenses or notices of intent are required.

2. Mole Trap Shyness and Trap Avoidance

mole hair caught in trap If you look closely at the Macabee trap shown at right, you see mole hair between the tines of the sprung trap, but no mole. Macabees, Easy Sets, and other similar traps may catch juvenile moles on a regular basis, but they just don’t have sufficient spring strength or the proper mechanics needed to catch the larger adults consistently. Many larger adults are pinched in traps, but wriggle free to live another day. And they do learn from their experience. Moles that are pinched in ineffective traps and manage to escape will quickly become trap shy and almost impossible to trap. Once they know the danger associated with that foreign object in their tunnel system, they will repeatedly pack dirt against it or simply avoid it altogether.

Creating trap shy moles through the use of marginally effective traps is a disaster for any mole and vole control program. Your staff will spend countless hours of wasted time repeatedly re-setting traps for the same trap shy moles and voles with minimal results, and the trap shy moles and voles will continue to breed and produce offspring that will re-invade tunnel systems on a course. You may continue to catch many naive younger moles and voles, but without eliminating the larger breeding adults, you will never disrupt the breeding cycle and achieve real population control.

When we take over doing mole and vole control on golf courses usinig our stainless steel traps, we’ll literally haul out buckets of trapped moles and voles. The superintendents on these courses are often shocked by how efficient our trapping program is compared to results they obtained with their staff using rusty Macabee traps or similarly ineffective traps. Theyr’e also consistently shocked by the size of the moles and voles we catch, as they’re used to seeing the juveniles that their staff catch with less powerfull traps, and they’re not used to seeing the full sized adult moles and voles that we take out with our traps.

3. Spot Treatment vs. Population Control for Moles

We’ve noticed on many of the golf courses we’ve taken over that due to time constraints, the maintenance staff tend to “spot treat” moles and voles when they get into highly visible areas such as greens, tees, bunkers, and out in the middle of fairways, but often pay less attention to them when they’re in the roughs or other less critical areas. In our view this is a short sighted approach to mole and vole control, because even though those moles and voles in the less critical areas may not be a major concern, they do continue to breed and thus produce an endless supply of moles and voles to re-invade the critical areas of the course.

A more effecitve approach that will result in far better control and will also eat up significantly less staff time in the long run is to shoot for 100% control throughout the grounds. Mole and vole control becomes a vastly easier proposition once you get the population low enough to break the breeding cycle. You’ll always have to trap moles and voles invading from the perimeter, but this is a very easy proposition compared to constantly trying to keep pace with the natural increase of a breeding population.

Consultations for Moles

We do a lot of work on golf courses as part of our service business, and we enjoy talking with golf course superintendents about mole and vole control, so if any of you have questions about mole and vole trapping or need advice about getting going with a truly effective trapping program, please feel free to call us for a no cost consultation.

Call Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975.

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