Warm March Brings Out Unwanted Critters
CARMEL, IN - The unseasonably warm March weather has made wild animals more active, and brought many unwanted critters into places Hoosiers really don't want them. And the scare for some homeowners is turning into a boost in business for local companies.
Because of the warm spring, critter control expert Tracy Sullivan is finding raccoons making their home in places they should not. "If a raccoon wants in," he said, "there is no way to keep them out."
For homeowners, that means they are more likely to get into places you really don't want them.
"I came up stairs to bed and I heard a loud scratching noise in the ceiling," said Mary Boustani of Carmel. "It kept scratching like it was making a nest or something in the attic above our room.'
Sullivan knew it was a raccoon making himself at home, coming in and out of the attic. He detected raccoon fur stuck to duct tape around a hole in the second story siding of Boustani's home. "I have activity going in and out of that hole," he concluded.
Sullivan said the animal's point of entry was a bathroom exhaust fan vent. "What it did - it just tore the cover off and then it ripped the tubing out of the attic and if it can get its head through that hole, it can pull its body through," he explained.
Every single day, Sullivan gets his ladder out off the truck, climbs onto roofs, making his way toward a trap that catches the unwanted intruders alive. The cages in the back of his truck were full of raccoons when he called on Boustani.
The animal or animals invading Boustani's home most likely came from next door, from a house that had been in empty and the grass went uncut.
"I did see a coyote when the grass was taller," said Boustani, "and there used to be a lot of rabbits in that yard."
Raccoons most likely had made a home in that house, which has since been cleaned up. When it was, the pest moved on, in Bousani's case right, next door.
Credits: By Richard Essex - www.wthr.com
