Wildlife Living Under a Porch or Deck

Situation: There is a wild animal living under your porch or deck.

Why This Happens: Wild animals survive by constantly searching for and utilizing the resources they find in their environment. They interpret the gap under your deck or the missing board under your porch as a “Welcome” sign. They are not aware that they are trespassing; they only know that there is an entry hole that lets them get into a relatively warm, dark, safe and quiet place. For animals like opossums, raccoons, foxes, skunks, and woodchucks a porch or deck forms a ready-made roof under which they feel more secure from danger and protected from the elements. Raccoons and opossums usually like to just curl up as far back from the edge as they can get. Skunks, woodchucks and foxes may dig a burrow in the soil under the deck or porch.

FAQs and Humane Solutions:

Many wild animals seek shelter under decks and porches

   “I have an animal living under my deck (or porch). Will you come out here and remove it, or can I rent a live-trap from you, so I can trap it myself?”

The answer to both questions is “No,” because we have a much better solution to offer: Experience with thousands of such situations over more than 35 years has shown us that the self-help techniques we describe below are much more humane than trapping and relocating an animal, provide a more ecologically-sound solution than relocation, and are more likely to provide you with a lasting solution at less expense than removal/relocation.

“There is a family of foxes [or woodchucks, raccoons, opossums, etc.] living under our deck. We don’t really mind; in fact, we enjoy watching them. But are they dangerous? Should we be concerned?”

We have counseled with hundreds of thousands of people over the last three decades who have called us for answers to their questions about backyard wildlife. In all that time, never once did we have someone tell us that a fox, raccoon, opossum, skunk or woodchuck had bitten them or a family member, even when the animal(s) have had babies. So, in our experience, the risk to human safety from an animal living under a deck or porch is very small. That being said, you should be careful to not corner them, or try to get too close to them, especially their young. And you absolutely, positively, should not feed them! Providing food for them will get them associate humans with food, and we DO often get calls from people who have wild animals in their neighborhood that are seemingly unafraid of humans, and some that have even become bold in approaching people. This is probably caused by people putting food out for wild mammals, and this is not a good situation for the animal or for people. So we suggest tolerance, first. If you later find that you need to get the animal(s) to move elsewhere, you can use the advice we provide below.

 Helpless baby animals, like these tiny raccoons, are often orphaned when their mother is trapped and relocated

 “There is a raccoon [or opossum, woodchuck, fox, etc.] living under my deck. I’d like to get him to leave. What can I do to get him to move along and find someplace else to live?”

If you can’t tolerate the animal(s) living there, we recommend that you use a combination of concurrent “hazing” and exclusion.

1). Hazing involves temporarily converting that dark, safe, quiet wildlife haven under your deck or porch into a bright, noisy, smelly area in which the animal no longer feels comfortable or safe. The supplies that will be needed are: a bright light such as a mechanic's trouble light or a floodlight, a portable radio, and some type of non-toxic animal repellent such as Critter Ridder®, Expel®, or rags drenched in household ammonia.

Hazing Technique - Set up the light under the deck or porch, ideally about five feet away from the entrance hole, and turn it on, shining it toward the animal’s sleeping area or the entrance to its burrow. Caution: keep power cords away from the entrance itself or the animal may gnaw on the cord! Make sure the light cannot tip over and that it is not hot enough or close enough to anything flammable that it could start a fire! If possible, place the radio within several feet of the animal's “den” or about five feet away from the entrance hole. Tune the radio to a talk station or a rock-and-roll station and have it on with the volume turned up as loud as you reasonably can. If possible, place rags drenched in household ammonia or apply the non-toxic repellent just under the edge of the deck at the point where the animal comes and goes (look for an area where the grass or soil is flattened or worn away) from the deck or porch. Do NOT put ammonia, repellent, or any other product into the actual burrow or den of an animal! Any baby animals inside would be unlikely to be able to escape the odors or could be harmed by direct contact with the substance. Shine the light and play the radio starting every day in the evening and going all night. The animal might leave the first night you do this, but you’ll probably need to keep this up for a few nights or perhaps longer. The ammonia on the rags will evaporate, so you’ll need to re-wet them with fresh ammonia once or twice a day.

Note: hazing works best in relatively small areas. In a very large area, such as under a large deck, the animal may simply avoid the hazing techniques by moving its activity away from the hazing to another area under the deck. In this case, you’ll need to introduce enough light and noise for the entire area.

  A worn gap under the deck indicates that an animal habitually comes and goes by this route

  A light and radio placed near a burrow under a deck

 IMPORTANT: In cases where there may be baby animals present, we recommend that if at all possible, you wait until the young are old enough to leave the nesting area on their own before you start hazing. There is a small chance that the hazing could get a mother animal to abandon her young or mistakenly not take all of her young with her when she moves out. In southern Wisconsin, Woodchucks may have young as early as late-April, though May or June is more typical. Raccoons may have young as early as April and as late as September. Foxes usually give birth in April or May. Chipmunks may have two litters per year, starting in May and into June. Skunks may give birth as early as April but more often in May or June.

2). Exclusion – Installing an animal-proof barrier around the porch or deck at the same time you are doing the hazing may help encourage the animal to relocate on its own, but will also prevent future animals from entering.