How do you know if you have an opossum under your shed or porch?

Green Bay Opossums have been known to love living in dark secluded places. They also like to burrow and live in dark holes in the ground. This makes places like underneath porches or sheds to be attractive to them as they can easily burrow under there and come out in the cover of darkness and look for any food that you may have left lying around uncovered.



Some of the clear signs that you could be having Wisconsin opossums living under your shed or porch include:

Vanishing pet food
This in fact does not just apply to pet food alone but also to regular human food. Green Bay Opossums can only live where they have access to food that they can eat. If the usual portions of food that you normally leave for your pet, especially cat food is no longer enough for them, they probably have help consuming it and you should follow up.

Smacking and hissing noises
These noises are part of their defence mechanism against threats. Male possums make growling noises that increase in pitch when faced with danger while baby possums will often hiss loudly. Mother opossum will make clicking noises to get the attention of her babies as well. If you hear these noises coming from under the shed or the porch then you probably have possums under there.

Unpleasant smells
One characteristic that is indicative of an opossum habitat is foul smelling waste that they leave everywhere. Their moist poop will have smelled the whole place unbearably before drying out into remnants that smell less awful. Possums also tend to steal fruit and eat it in the cover of darkness leaving leftovers to rot. This can also cause a bad smell in your compound.

Unsettled pet noises
If your cat or dog is suddenly unsettled in the night more often, there is probably a nest of opossums under your shed. Opossums like to fight pets and especially cats which are more likely to be a size close to theirs. Dogs will always bark at anything out of ordinary so if your cat or dog becomes restless it’s probably because of opossums.

Rummaged trashcans
Opossums will look for food in the night, that’s a fact. If you wake up to your trashed torn upside down you probably have opossums nearby. They follow the smell of food and so leftovers thrown in the dustbin will automatically catch their attention. You might find some leftover food bits around your porch or shed in the morning also

Scratching noises
These noises will sound almost like screeching and scratching like rodents would but this will be louder as opossums are much bigger in size. Hearing such noises coming from under the shed or the porch especially in the night is a sign that opossums could be under there.

If you spot any of these signs, you might want to get professionals to assess the area around your home and help you to get rid of these intruders before the cause unsalvageable damage to your property.

Visit our Green Bay wildlife trapping home page to learn more about us.