I've lived in this house about 15 years now, and although we live in a small city, there's a ton of wildlife in my neighborhood. My neighbors and I joke about our "pet coons and groundhogs" and find the squirrels entertaining, as well as the rest of the wild life. It wasn't a problem until last year, when my next door neighbor took a fancy to a family of feral cats and started feeding them on his porch day and night. The coons love cat food, and started coming around and eating with the cats, scaling the houses, and playing on the roofs - keeping us up all night long. We trapped a few and relocated them, but I finally begged my neighbor to please only feed the cats in the morning, and not both morning and night. He did, for a while, then started to sneak & feed them late at night (I would hear him - our houses are very close). Long story short, one of the coons got pregnant and ripped a hole in my roof to get in and have her babies in the attic. The noise was deafening!! First, the sound of roofing and wood being torn apart, then the birthing, then the babies and the mewling and skittering and scratching, all night long. We couldn't figure out exactly where they were, because the noise seemed to be everywhere, until I was talking to another neighbor one day and looked up to see a large hole in my roof, surrounded by debris. Since then, we've had two "critter guys" and three roofers out here to get rid of the problem. It took about three months, but the coons are finally gone, but the three roofers have all refused to climb my steep roof to fix the hole (I live in a 100 year old faux-Victorian farmhouse), so there is always the possibility of another coon family moving in, not to mention the possible further damage from inclement weather. Anybody have any suggestions. Still looking for roofers, too...
I've lived in this house about 15 years now, and although we live in a small city, there's a ton of wildlife in my neighborhood. My neighbors and I joke about our "pet coons and groundhogs" and find the squirrels entertaining, as well as the rest of the wild life. It wasn't a problem until last year, when my next door neighbor took a fancy to a family of feral cats and started feeding them on his porch day and night. The coons love cat food, and started coming around and eating with the cats, scaling the houses, and playing on the roofs - keeping us up all night long. We trapped a few and relocated them, but I finally begged my neighbor to please only feed the cats in the morning, and not both morning and night. He did, for a while, then started to sneak & feed them late at night (I would hear him - our houses are very close). Long story short, one of the coons got pregnant and ripped a hole in my roof to get in and have her babies in the attic. The noise was deafening!! First, the sound of roofing and wood being torn apart, then the birthing, then the babies and the mewling and skittering and scratching, all night long. We couldn't figure out exactly where they were, because the noise seemed to be everywhere, until I was talking to another neighbor one day and looked up to see a large hole in my roof, surrounded by debris. Since then, we've had two "critter guys" and three roofers out here to get rid of the problem. It took about three months, but the coons are finally gone, but the three roofers have all refused to climb my steep roof to fix the hole (I live in a 100 year old faux-Victorian farmhouse), so there is always the possibility of another coon family moving in, not to mention the possible further damage from inclement weather. Anybody have any suggestions. Still looking for roofers, too...