There is a lot of information about opossums on the internet, some of it bogus, but it pays to know a little about the animal that you're trying to evict from your property or home. Opossums are one of a very long list of wild critters that are frequently coming into conflict with humans, and it's mostly down to our actions - we are cutting down forests and other landmasses that these creatures would once have called their own habitat. They have had no choice but to find somewhere else to live, and what better place than right alongside us. We have shelter and lots of it, plenty of food, and there's lots of water about too. The clean stuff - good stuff.
If there is everything WE need in our homes, there is everything the OPOSSUM needs too.
Animals are first attracted to your home by something and that something is usually food. There are other reasons why an opossum would want to come by and take a closer look, but it is usually the hunt for food that leads them there in the first place. That's the first thing you'll need to do - avoid and eliminate food sources in the back garden. Thankfully, there are plenty of property modifications to make sure your land is protected. A fence helps, as does cutting back trees and branches that could work as pathways for these animals. Once all food and garbage has been tidied up, and the garden has been cleaned up, the animal has no food and no shelter, therefore, no reason to stick around.
In terms of food, nothing is out of bounds. Opossums are omnivores, eating both plant and animal matter, and they're also opportunist hunters. They would prefer to find food than hunt it down, because they're lazy, and they take the same approach with a nesting spot too. They would much rather takeover an abandoned den than build or dig their own. It also means that fish that have gone missing from your back garden pond is not likely to have been down to an opossum, as well as holes in your lawn.
Opossums are actually pretty dumb animals, but smart at the same time. It is fairly easy to lure them into a trap with the promise of food, but they know to play dead at just the right time to ensure you let them go so that they can scamper right off again. That's their first defence mechanism, but the second one is to fight. When you consider that the opossum can have as many as fifty very sharp teeth in that little head, it's definitely not an animal that you're going to want to fight.
The right way to evict opossums from your home will depend on the situation. One that has gotten itself stuck inside your chimney is best removed using a snare pole trap, but that's something that only the professionals are going to have to hand. Opossums that are inside the house, such as, in crawl spaces, in the attic, hiding in the basement, etc., are best evicted using a trapping technique, but you may need to slightly tweak that trapping technique if there are joeys in tow and they are in the nest, rather than in the pouch or on the back of the mother.
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