What Attracts Opossums – Humane Wildlife Removal

What Attracts Opossums to My Property?

Unlike many other wild creatures, seeing an opossum in your garden or yard is not necessarily a cause for concern. They are incredibly docile mammals that will not attack you, whether threatened or not, and they are highly unlikely to cause damage to your property in the same way that something else like a rat or squirrel might. In fact, opossums can actually be useful at protecting your vegetables or plants from worse pests like slugs and other insects.

However, they are still considered pests, and in order to remove them, it is important to understand why they are coming to your property in the first place. Whilst they tend to stay in woodland areas, opossums have become increasingly common in urban places. Additionally, they do not hibernate in the winter as they cannot store food like other creatures, so you are likely to see opossums active all year round.

Like everything else, opossums are attracted to your property for two reasons: food and shelter. Opossums are omnivorous, which means they will happily eat vegetables or plant matter as well as insects and even other animals.

Popular targets include garbage cans and vegetable plots in gardens. But, if able to, opossums will also help themselves to any food source inside your property.

Opossums have a keen sense of smell due to being nocturnal mammals, so they can easily smell strong odors from long distances away, especially anything that smells sweet. As a result, preventing opossums is a matter of making sure any food source is sealed or cleared away. For example, store your garbage in secure bins, and keep your garden or yard clean of fallen seeds or fruit.

If they are not looking for food, chances are the opossum has come to your property in search of a secure shelter to den in. In your home, this could be the crawl space or even your attic. Opossums generally seek out dry places to make their nests, but because they are not very good at digging they will often search for pre-existing shelters, which can also include burrows built by other creatures.

They also are a very nomadic species that do not stay in one nest for too long and move between nests many times a week. As such, even if you do have an opossum visit your property, chances are they will not stick around for long.