Preventing Animals From Digging Under Your Foundation

A pier and beam foundation offers a dark and cool habitat that is attractive and ideal for many critters to call dwelling. Strange sounds coming from below your floors is a telltale sign that animals such every bit raccoons or rats are living nether your foundation. Maybe yous simply noticed some disruption around your foundation and now you're concerned that something is trying to make a nest beneath your habitation.

Whatever the case may exist, now is the fourth dimension to act.

While it's common for animals to dig under your foundation, at that place are steps y'all can take to prevent it from happening or to mitigate damage once they've already fabricated their way in.

Signs of Animal Digging

If an animal has been earthworks under your home's foundation, you lot'll find some disruption around the site. Displaced world or landscaping and animal sightings in the area are mutual signs. If you have whatever concerns that animals are digging beneath your foundation, take a irksome walk around the habitation'due south perimeter, checking for whatever disruption.

How to Proceed Animals Out of Your Foundation

If your initial evaluation reveals that animals are attempting to dig beneath your foundation, don't panic considering there's nonetheless fourth dimension to act. Take the following steps to prevent them from getting in:

  • Fill existing holes. This is the first footstep to keeping animals out. Whatever holes around your dwelling's foundation should be refilled with soil and tamped down so it is solid and not loose.
  • Treat the area to deter animals. There are chemic products on the market place that brand wildlife avoid areas due to their foreign or offensive scent. Do some research into these products to make up one's mind if they will resolve your problem. Those with pets may wish to avoid, as they can affect friendly animals too equally unfriendly ones.
  • Remove shrubbery and landscaping obscuring burrows. Removing all greenery from your chiliad is unnecessary, just you lot might want to trim back bushes that embrace the area where your foundation connects to the earth. This prevents animals from fugitive your notice, and helps y'all spot additional problem areas more easily.
  • Reinforce the surface area. Calculation cement, patio blocks or trench screening to the area, after it'due south been completely cleared of wildlife, will help ensure that nothing digs into it again. Landscaping to forestall animal earthworks doesn't have to look ugly, and can prevent huge repair costs if done in a timely manner.

How to Remove Animals Living Under Your Domicile

If animals have already managed to go nether your home, the first step is contacting your local wildlife management bureau. If the culprits are animals such every bit opossums or raccoons, which are mutual in Austin and the surrounding areas of Texas, someone from your local Texas Parks & Wildlife role will likely set traps and relocate the animals. The Texas Parks & Wild fauna traps will exist prophylactic for homes with pets and do not apply impale methods like poison and snares.

While having animals under your foundation can be a startling experience, these simple tips help you bargain effectively with the situation and avoid additional damage down the road.

Once you lot've gotten any wild fauna removed, you lot might want to check that foundation damage they caused has been repaired. Contact us to schedule a foundation inspection to exist sure your home is on a solid foundation.