About one year ago, very early in the morning, I heard a critter or two in our attic. I didn’t want it (or them) making a mess or having babies in our attic, so I did some research to find a company to help trap and remove whatever was invading the space above where we live.
After a couple of phone calls and estimates, I picked a company near where our home is located. The high quote was nearly $4,000 – the lowest was just under $2,000. I picked the lower of the two.
The company sent employees to our home. They set some traps and checked for damage in our attic. The company employees told me it was either squirrels or rats. I figured squirrels, since there are many of them in our neighborhood.
Nothing was captured in the traps, and in a few days, the company sealed all the entrance points and collected its check.
Two weeks ago, there was something much larger in our attic. It sounded like whatever it was was flopping around. Then it stopped. Another call to the critter folks was made. The attic was checked, and it was concluded that there had been a raccoon in our attic. There was some “evidence” left, but no sighting of the coon. The little bugger entered by pushing up on the eaves until one broke, and in it went.
Traps were set again, and the employee doing the work checked in the next few days to see if anything was caught. Since there was nothing in the traps, the employee came back and coon proofed our attic. He cleaned up the mess and disinfected our attic. This time, a check for $1,400 was collected.
The person who did the work forgot to collect his traps, and a couple of days after he finished his work, we noticed a raccoon in one of the traps. Another call was made, and the critter company sent the employee back to collect the traps and relocate the coon – many miles away from our home.
To this day, I’m having a hard time figuring out why this critter picked our home to invade. We’re in the middle of about 110 homes on the north end of The Villages, so it had a lot of choices, but it picked ours.
The good news is that we shouldn’t have to spend any more money protecting our attic space from wild animals because there is no access point for them any longer, and the two areas that allowed access have been sealed with sheet metal. Another piece of good news is that the critter company’s work is guaranteed for life, but it was $3,300 we were not planning to spend.
Have A Good Week!
