What to Do if You Find Critters Living in Your Home | The Weather Channel – Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com – The Weather Channel

During the colder, winter months, small animals will likely try and sneak into your home for shelter and warmth. If there's a way in, rest assured these intrepid, unwanted guests will find it. Once they do, you may not know they're there for several weeks or months. Critters like mice, rats and bats are very good at staying hidden, especially in houses with attics and basements, aka lots of dark places for them to hunker down.

More often than not, the ways you'll learn that critters have taken up residence in your home is by hearing them scuffle about, smelling them in your heating and cooling vents, or seeing their dirty work chewed wires, water damage (especially in the attic) and droppings. So what should you do once it's clear you've got some wild animal tenants? That all depends on what they are. Here's a list of the main culprits you'll find squatting in your home and what you can do to escort them out.

Rodents (mice, rats and squirrels)

Mice, rats and squirrels are the most common critter home invaders you'll come across, because they're small and very capable of squeezing through tiny crevices. In fact, entry holes need not be larger than 1/4 inch for one of these tenacious rodents to make their way through them. The best way to keep them out is by scouring your home for small openings, sealing all cracks and holes, and adding weather stripping to all windows and doors. However, if they've already made their way indoors, things get a bit more complicated.

How to humanely evict rodents

You don't have to use poison or traditional mouse traps to take care of your rodent problem. Instead, you can place cotton balls soaked in peppermint or eucalyptus oil, scents rodents don't like, in areas where you've seen evidence of them to drive them out of your home. You should also make sure to secure all open food and food contained in cardboard, as well as all garbage containers. While this is a temporary deterrent, once the rodents have vacated, plug up the holes and cracks they appear to have entered from so they can't return.

If you find any stragglers remaining after you've plugged up the holes, you can set catch and release traps which are available at most hardware stores.

That said, mice infestations can get out of hand rather quickly, especially if left unchecked for some time. If you feel like your efforts aren't making a dent, call a pest control professional.

In the case of squirrels, it's important to locate their nest, which will likely be in the rafters of your attic. If you find baby squirrels in the nest, it's best to wait a few weeks until their old enough to be on their own. In the meantime, seal off all the openings in your attic so there's only one exit point. Install a one-way cage door on the outside of that exit point so when the squirrels try to leave, they'll go right into the cage. Make sure to check the cage daily so that no one starves inside.

Once you believe all the squirrels have been caught, release them at least five miles away from your house as long as your state's wildlife catch and release laws designate allow that.

Bats in the attic

Brown bats like to roost in attics, so that's the variety people often happen upon. They can enter through tiny openings around windows, air vents and gaps in roofs. Bats can actually be quite useful because they have a voracious appetite for bugs, but that doesn't mean you necessarily want them taking up permanent residence in your home.

It's important to note, however, that you can't simply remove bats any old way. Bat extermination is actually illegal in the US, so they must be evicted via "exclusion" which basically means sealing up all exits except for one or two where a trap is placed, just like with squirrels. Exclusions can also only be down in the early spring, before bat babies are born, or early fall, once the babies are old enough to be away from their mother.

A bat removal expert can install bat check valves over any openings which allow bats to leave but not return to their roosting spot.

If a bat starts flying around a more common area, like a bedroom or living room, clear out young children and pets, wait for it to land, and either capture it using heavy duty gloves, or by putting a plastic container over it and sliding a piece of cardboard underneath, like you would a large insect. Release outside away from your home, either in midair or onto a vertical space, like a tree.

How to handle larger pests

Raccoons, skunks and possums may also frequent your attic, basement or garage to escape the punishing cold weather, but they can be harder to trap without professional help. Once captured and released, the best way to keep them from coming back is to always keep garage and basement doors and windows closed, secure outdoor trash cans with wildlife-proof lids and or bungee cords, and cap your chimney.

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