How do I get possums out of my attic?
>>916337
Burn it to the ground. It should work.
>>916340
>suggesting arson and animal cruelty
>You dont
>>916337
Use Hardware Cloth (pic) to put up physical barriers where they are getting in. Use baited live traps to catch them and move them outside. You can also catch them by hand, just wear leather work gloves. Grab them by the skin on the back of their neck and by the last half of their tail at the same time. They have a difficult time trying to turn their head to try to bite you when you grab them behind the neck like that. Sometimes they shutdown and do their "play dead" thing when you do that, but don't expect it.They have an amazing set of teeth that they display and they normally stink.
You can also befriend the very young ones and raise them as a pet. But, they are not domesticated and will bite you if you do stupid things with them when they don't want you messing with them. The older they get the more of an "opinion" they develop.
>>916347
Because people don't think I'm odd enough as it is ...
>>916356
Do what you want to do, anon. To hell with everyone else if they have a nonconstructive negative opinion.
>>916346
I think their tails break off as well. Just grab em by the scruff of the neck, they are like cats, will go limp and think you are their mother.
They usually die in winter anyway if you are very far north putting em outside? They hitch rides on transports and belong in South America with the Brazilians.
Have you tried asking /an/?
>>>/an/
>>916370
Not much different really. They are both scavengers that will take from you and bite you in the end.
>>916372
Their tails can break if you/they lever it and they are twisting. Like if you are trying to pull them out of something they are hiding in. But tail + scruff never results in that.
Also, I live in an area where it gets down to -40F/-40C in the winter sometimes and there's 1,000s of opossums. There's a tailless opossum that's lived here for several years.
Shoot them with a high power BB gun. Poison works too
>>916337
Throw a poke ball at it then release them into the wild.
>>916346
Have to do this for squirrels.
Only, hardware cloth isn't enough on it's own, you gotta fill it with steel wool and expansion foam so the fuckers don't dig it out.
They make foam with pesticide mixed in, bit I like the thought of the bastards in agony with steel slivers in their mouths.
>>916347
>a pet possum
Jesus Christ, how white trash can you be? That's even trashier them having a pet raccoon.
>>916445
No, you misunderstand. They don't chew through it, though I don't doubt they could, given enough time, they pull and pull at it until all the staples are pulled out. Doesn't matter if I use 30 staples or 300, by the end of the season, they've pulled it out.
Kill one and put its head on a pike in your attic for all to see. It should scare them off.
>>916337
>How do I get possums out of my attic?
Maybe set off a bug bomb up there?
>>916459
I use fencing staples, not stapler gun staples. That is a massive difference. They don't pull out. Sorry for the confusion. In some cases
>>916862
>In some cases
Not sure what happened there but here's the rest,
In some cases, you pin it down around the edge with a strip of wood.
>>916337
play dead, obviously.
>>916346
I have mice in the attic. I've been trying to use hardware cloth and snappy traps. I think it's working, but once you start looking there seems to be a zillion 1/4" cracks that could be giving access.
>>918950
USe Great Stuf foam insulation for large cracks. You can stuff the cracks with foil or steel wool too. Steel wool + the foam is the best long term solution. You don't need much steel wool, one pad can be pulled apart and used over a larger area.
>>916337
sell them on eBay, self pickup only.
>>918955
I have heard the steel wool suggestion a lot. I thought steel wool would rust away to nothing pretty quickly. I have used the foam, but am concerned about that keeping moisture in at places.
>>919081
It'll be fine. Mice and rats and squirrels and other rodents try to chew on steel wool and get tons of metal splinters in their mouths, so they stop chewing on it. You can use plain steel wool to plug holes that mice and rats get in, but you have to spray it down with foam to keep squirrels out, since they'll just pull it out and starve to death in your attic since they can't eat.
At least, that's what I assume happened to the squirrel I had to pull out of my attic after it started stinking.
I would suggest installing a large number of natural enemies in the attic, such as a clowder of bobcats. That way they get handled and you don't feel bad because the laws of nature are being obeyed.
Seal affected area till air tight aside from one entrance and one exit
fill area with nitrogen/carbon monoxide/mustard gas/nerve agents
Purge gas
No more possums!
Buy a large tub of rodent poison. (Poisoned and colored grains of wheat, usually).
Open lid and leave in your loft.
Inspect every now and then, and replace when empty.
I've lived in the country all my life, this works for rats, squirrels, mice (no possums here). They die and dessicate, but as it's an always-there method, the pests will die as soon as they enter the building, rather than breed up to become a significant problem.
I'm actually an animal lover, but the risk of fire through chewed wires, and damage to my house means this is the only realistic way.
>>919081
Hardware cloth, Stainless Steel wool, and spray foam where needed. You are not filling your ventilation ports. You are screening those off and foaming up cracks in other places.
>>920692
Use traps first for about 2 weeks max then switch to poisons. The traps will catch everything that is living in the space. The poison will kill any vagabonds who live outside that space. Then you don't have tons of mice, rats, or squirrels stinking up your shit.
Although, if you have pets that will eat these animals, don't use poisons or your pets may end up eating a poisoned animal and thus get poisoned.
>>919251
You can always just suit up and purge the compartment to the hard vacuum of space for a while. That's really the best way to get rid of an infestation.
