Furry critters like squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and groundhogs may look cute from afar, but these pests can cause significant trouble if they find their way inside your home. Many types of wildlife will use open vents, holes in the wall, or cracks in the foundation to seek shelter inside your home. If you suspect that you may be playing host to unwelcome animal guests, it's important to take swift action to resolve the issue. Viking Pest's SMART Wildlife Exclusion provides a humane approach to wildlife control that focuses on trapping and removing pests while implementing prevention strategies to keep them from returning.

Why Do I Need Wildlife Management Solutions?

Every homeowner should address the potential dangers of a wildlife infestation through preventative maintenance and pest control services. Wildlife may cause significant property damage, from chewing through walls and electrical wires to structural damage from their burrowing and nesting habits. Some species may even clog your vents in attempts to build their nests.

Wildlife species may carry various diseases, bacteria, and parasites that can transmit to humans and cause illness. Their fur, dander, and droppings can also trigger allergies in some people. If you happen to encounter a live animal in your home, there is the risk of getting bitten or scratched, especially if the animal feels threatened and becomes aggressive.

The threat of an infestion may worsen depending on the season. For example, squirrels typically have litters in early spring and summer. If you don't take action with professional squirrel control, populations can quickly grow and cause more trouble.

What Are the Benefits of Wildlife Exclusion?

Squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and other critters will take advantage of any entry points to get inside your home to access food, water, warmth, and safe shelter to nest. Wildlife exclusion is a safe and humane approach to pest control and begins with an inspection of your property to identify and seal entry points in your basement, attic, and around your home. This wildlife managment strategy includes suggestions to make the environment surrounding your home less appealing to wildlife. Simple measures like keeping pet food indoors or taking it away after feeding time, picking up fallen fruit, harvesting produce from your garden, and securing trash in sealed containers can all help deter unwanted creatures. Physical barriers like mesh fences, screens, and chimney caps are other important aspects of protecting your property.

How Does the SMART System Work?

If you want even greater protection against wildlife, Anticimex SMART is a valuable upgrade to traditional wildlife exclusion services. The SMART system provides 24/7 monitoring of pest activity using innovative, intelligent, and eco-friendly technology.

SMART wildlife exclusion employs a network of strategically placed infrared sensors to track wildlife activity and send alerts to the office so the Viking team knows when to take action. Ongoing service includes periodic inspections, trap relocation if animal activity shifts, and trap emptying.

Get Proactive About Wildlife Management With Safe, Sustainable, and Humane SMART Solutions From Viking Pest

You can ONLY get SMART Wildlife Exclusion from Viking Pest Control in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Our team uses the latest technology and expertise from decades of experience with the area's wildlife to create a customized solution for your home. Contact us today to get started by requesting your free estimate.

Groundhogs are also known as woodchucks and are basically giant rodents. They’re between one and two feet long and can weigh as much as 10 pounds. They dig quite impressive tunnels to live in. A groundhog burrow may have as many as five entrances and 45 feet of tunnels five feet under the ground! Groundhogs are primarily herbivorous creatures that munch on wild grass, berries, agricultural crops, clover, dandelions, and alfalfa. In your garden, groundhogs will eat your seedlings before they even have a chance to sprout. They eat a third of their weight in vegetation every day; so if a groundhog finds your garden, you can say goodbye to your veggies in a very short period of time!

Groundhog Damages

To provide overhead stability for their underground cities, groundhogs tend to dig their burrows against structures – like your home, shed, or under your patio – and as a result, they can significantly compromise the structure of your property. As they’re digging around your yard, groundhogs move hundreds of pounds of soil. Your driveway or patio can cave in due to the tunnels groundhogs dig underneath.

How to Prevent Groundhogs

You can help prevent groundhogs on your property by making your yard less attractive to them. Limiting sources of food and shelter will keep the groundhogs from settling into your property. You can do this by:

• Cleaning up piles of brush, wood, and leaves from your property. Groundhogs like to use these items to hide the entrances to their homes.
• Trim plants that groundhogs may hide under or eat.
• Harvest fruit and vegetable crops as soon as you can, as to not attract the large rodents into your garden.
• Remove tree trunks from your property, as groundhogs use them to grind their teeth.

If you have abandoned groundhog burrows on your property, cover the entrances with wired fencing that you bury about one foot below ground level to prevent new groundhogs from moving in.

Professional Groundhog Control Solutions

In NJ, PA, MD and DE, groundhogs are common pests that will eat everything in your garden in addition to causing potential structural damage to your home, patio, driveway, or shed. If you’re ready to protect your property and gardens from groundhogs, give Viking Pest Control a call. Our trained pest control specialists can provide garden pest control services to eliminate groundhogs (and other garden pests) with the use of humane traps and habitat modification.

Call Viking at 800-618-2847 to learn more about groundhog wildlife control services, or get a fast, free quote online today!