The thought of an animal in your wall is a scary one. First, you can be sure that the animal will be a nuisance as it tries to crawl out. Secondly, if the animal fails to climb out of the wall, it might get exhausted or dehydrated and die at the bottom of the wall. After a while, its body will start to decompose and cause an unbearable odor.
What Do You Do If an Animal Is in Your Wall?
First, Identify the Animal
Most animals that find their way into the wall do so after falling from the attic. Therefore, if there is an animal in your wall, it’s most likely one that likes to reside in the attic, such as:
The best way to identify it is by noting its behavior. Here are two questions to help you know which animal might be in your wall:
When is the animal most active?
Nocturnal animals are more active during the night than during the day. On the other hand, diurnal animals are likely to be heard going about their business during the day and staying quiet at night.
If you hear noise and movement in your wall during the night, the animal is most likely a raccoon, rat, or opossum. On the other hand, if you hear the animal during the day, it’s most likely a squirrel.
How loud is the noise from the wall?
The loudness and nature of the noise produced by the animal is usually a good indicator of the animal’s size. Raccoons and squirrels have bigger bodies and therefore make the loudest of noises. If a raccoon finds its way inside your wall, you will hear loud stomping and thumping. You are also likely to hear tearing sounds as it tries to make its way out of the wall.
Other rodents like rats and mice produce frantic scratching and clawing noises as they try to find their way out of the wall. On the other hand, birds produce chirping, scratching, and pecking noises and are relatively easy to identify.
Decide on the Best Way to Remove the Animal
To come up with the right strategy to remove the animal, you need to find out whether it can find its way out of the wall or whether it’s stuck at the bottom. If it can get out of the wall, the best way to remove it is to trap it in its pathways or entry hole. In some states, lethal trapping is illegal; therefore, it’s best to set up live traps such as one-way exclusion doors or cage traps. Furthermore, it’s more humane than exterminating the animal.
However, if the animal is stuck at the bottom, you might need to cut through the wall and remove the animal yourself. You can hold the animal by the neck using thick wildlife gloves or a snare pole.
Contact Shumaker’s Animal Control to get rid of the Animal in Your Wall
Removing an animal in the wall can get complex pretty fast, especially if the animal keeps shifting or if it has a litter. Our team at Shumaker Animal Control has years of experience removing animals from walls using humane methods, and we can help you put an end to the nuisance.
Contact us today or talk to us directly via phone at 443-854-8072 to get help with removing an animal from your wall.
