Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Sunday Closed
By County: Allen, Auglaize, Darke, Defiance, Hancock, Harding, Henry, Logan, Mercer, Paulding, Putnam, Shelby and Van Wert.
Finding evidence of pests or nuisance wildlife is alarming. Pests and animals disrupt your life, damage your home, and introduce health risks to you and your family.
Nuisance wildlife like raccoons, squirrels, rats, mice, opossums, bats, and birds are some of the most common household pests. Typical signs of pests and nuisance wildlife include unusual noises, strange odors, damage to the exterior of buildings, and paw prints or tracks.
For over forty years, we have been trusted to solve nuisance wildlife infestations, restore and repair their property, and protect their home from future infestations.
Critter Control is here for you every step of the way in the wildlife removal process. We were instrumental in defining the humane process to get rid of pests and wildlife. Over four decades, we have refined the process to safely and humanely remove wildlife from people’s property. We have the services you need to get rid of raccoons, squirrels, bats, rodents, and other pests effectively and efficiently.
Our inspections cover the entire house. Based on what you have seen, heard and smelled, we start the inspection where you have noticed signs of animal activity. The inspection process identifies the target pests, the size of the infestation, and animal entry points.
We develop a custom animal trapping and removal plan based on our whole home inspection. Humane wildlife strategies include animal traps, one-way doors, harassments techniques, pest repellents, and habitat modifications. Once we guarantee the animal is gone, we install exclusions for long-lasting pest control.
Exclusion techniques repair animal entry holes and strengthen potential ones. Exclusions provide immediate animal and pest control to your home.
Pests and nuisance wildlife damage your home. Inside your home, animals build nests and dens. They will create runs through the insulation and gnaw on electrical wires and pipes. Animals can also spread diseases. We apply sanitation agents to clean up feces and urine. Mammals can host pests like fleas, ticks, and mites. Ectoparasite treatments exterminate those pests so you don’t become their next host.
Raccoons are a common problem for Western Ohio property owners, as these critters have become used to living amongst people and raiding the trash cans of residents and businesses. Once they find a secure source of food and water, it’s only a matter of time before they pick out a nearby attic or chimney to make a den and have their kits. Unfortunately, they cause a lot of damage to homes and are also host to diseases and parasites.
Raccoons can tear a large hole in a roof to gain entry and create a lot of noise thumping around. Critter Control can quickly recognize the unique footprints and feces of raccoons, and we can help you with raccoon removal before too much damage has been done.
If you see a raccoon on your property or see signs of raccoon activity, it’s time to start thinking about how to remove it.
During the inspection, we determine the severity of the raccoon infestation. We look for physical evidence like footprints in or around the home, stains from raccoon feces and urine. On the exterior of the house, we look for damage like scratches on boards, broken vents and screens, ripped apart shingles, destroyed soffits, and every possible entry point.
Live trapping is one of the most efficient ways to get rid of a raccoon. Depending on the situation, a one-way door or excluder valve can be installed. An excluder valve works by allowing the raccoon to leave but blocks its reentry. The choice of device is largely dependent on the season and location of the raccoons on your property. Direct capture is not commonly used because raccoons are a rabies vector species. If we must trap, we place traps strategically to safely catch the raccoons and we check traps frequently, based on state laws.
We provide a wide range of repair and restoration services. We can repair raccoon damage like broken screens on vents and chimneys and broken boards on decks and porches. It is essential to apply cleaning agents and ectoparasite treatments on areas inhabited by raccoons
Opossums are fascinating animals, but not when they’re living on your property. As North America’s only marsupial, they carry their young in a belly pouch and then on the mother’s back until they can fend for themselves.
They are insect eaters, which should be good for humans, but they will also opportunistically rummage through your trash, compost or outdoor pet food. Opossums are good climbers that will sometimes enter an attic, but they mostly prefer a burrow underneath a porch or shed, or inside crawlspaces.
When an opossum is living nearby, you will notice a foul smell and hear hissing and scratching sounds. Critter Control recommends getting rid of an opossum quickly, as it can transmit disease and parasites to both humans and pets.
Opossums can be found inside attics and basements or outside under decks and sheds. Common signs include unique paw prints and feces. Opossums are docile and usually easy to spot.
Opossums can be lured into cages for live capture. If it is maternity season, we follow all guidelines for removing mother and newborn opossums. We will seal entryways into the building to prevent opossums from reentering in the future. Opossums can be kept from getting under sheds and decks by installing fencing around the bottom edges and burying the fence underground.
Broken screens on chimney and roof vents are replaced with sturdier materials, and we properly seal all entry points, including crawlspaces. We clean and deodorize areas of opossum activity. Exclusion may include eliminating sources that attract bugs, like nighttime lighting, stagnant water, and livestock poop.
Rats and mice are two of the most abundant mammals on Earth. Thoroughly used to living amongst people, they’ve also become some of the most dreaded pests to have in one’s home or office.
The most common of these rodents to make your home theirs are the house mouse, the Norway rat and the roof rat. Once inside your house, these creatures will contaminate the food in your pantry, leave their feces and urine along their travel paths and on countertops, and create oily smudges along walls.
These creatures will also gnaw through walls and wires, creating a fire hazard. Just a few of them will quickly turn into an infestation due to their prolific reproduction. They can breed up to 12 times per year, having around five to six babies at a time. To be certain you’ve rid your home or office of all of them, it’s best to call Critter Control.
During a rodent inspection, we thoroughly inspect your attic and provide a complete exterior home inspection. The most common signs of rodent activity are gnaw marks, feces, rub marks, nesting material, runs in insulation material, and small entry points.
A Critter Control wildlife specialist will create a strategic trapping plan to remove the rodents found in your home. Critter Control specialists may use snap traps and live traps to capture and remove mice and rats. Rodent trapping can usually takes between five to fourteen days.
The best way to reduce the possibility of letting unwanted rodents into homes is to seal possible entrances. Exclusion methods include caulking cracks in foundations, capping chimneys, and installing mesh covers over vents and crawl space entrances. We also strongly recommend a maintenance service. Rodents have front teeth that continuously grow, which means they can gnaw a new way back into your home.
There is no shortage of squirrels in Western Ohio. Purdue University loves its squirrels so much that they’ve made a Facebook page and Twitter account for them. However, the more squirrels and humans interact, the more likely it is that they will move in with us.
When the weather turns cold, these rodents look for shelter in homes and businesses. While they seem cute scampering about the park, they turn less so when tearing up insulation and chewing through wires in your attic.
Unlike their nocturnal rodent cousins, squirrels are diurnal, meaning they are active during the day. If you hear scampering about above your head in the morning, it’s most likely a squirrel.
Wildlife specialists look for signs such as chewing on, in, or around your home, small openings leading to the attic or the crawl space, droppings, and debris like nuts or nesting material. Beams, wires, pipes, and insulation may all show signs of damage from squirrels.
Live trapping or one-way doors are the most effective and humane ways to get rid of squirrels. One-way doors should never be used during birthing seasons (Spring & Fall), so our specialists will decide which is the best tool for the job. If we have to trap, we place traps strategically to safely catch the squirrels and check those according to state laws.
We can restore your home or office by squirrel proofing all entry points after we have removed the offenders. We can also clean-up the nesting sites and remove any debris, food, feces and soiled insulation.
The thirteen bat species that live in Ohio are all insect-eating mammals and are the only mammals capable of sustained flight. Bats in Lima are attracted to attics and chimneys because they have all the elements of a proper roosting place: darkness, security and quiet.
Bats should not be handled by people. They can carry rabies and parasites, and their guano carries other diseases that can be transmitted to people and pets. Human contact can also harm the bats, which are important to the region’s ecosystem, especially during mosquito season.
Bats are federally protected and should not be harmed. Bats give birth each spring to a single pup that remains helpless through the spring and summer, then is weaned by fall. It is during this time that bats can be eliminated from an attic without harming the young. A wildlife specialist will know how to humanely rid a home or business of a roost of bats, making sure to wait until their pups are old enough to fly and hunt for insects on their own.
We perform a full interior and exterior inspection and search for signs such as rub marks, guano, a strong scent of ammonia, and small openings. The most common sign is the accumulation of guano (feces).
The most effective and humane way to remove bats is by utilizing a bat valve in conjunction with a full home exclusion. A bat valve allows for bats to exit your home but not re-enter. We follow all local ordinances for humane bat removal. We will never abandon flightless pups in your attic.
After removing the bat valves, we seal the entrance hole(s) so bats can no longer enter your home. If there is substantial guano in your attic, you should consider taking advantage of our attic remediation services to remove the soiled insulation and replace it.
The striped skunk is found in every county in Ohio. These animals are known for foraging for food in trash bins and pet food bowls. They’re also profound and efficient diggers, and can mutilate an entire yard in a single night searching for grubs. They’re distinctive black and white fur, and their pungent odor that can linger for days, are unmistakeable. If you happen to cross paths with a skunk, do not try to scare it away. Please also remember that skunks can carry rabies; therefore, it’s best to let a professional handle removal for you.
In addition to noting any pungent odors that signal the presence of a skunk, we will inspect the condition of your landscaping, as skunks are known for tearing-up lawns and shredding grass while hunting for grubs and insects. We will also inspect the perimeter of your building’s foundations and under decks, to locate burrows.
Never try to remove a skunk from your property yourself. Getting sprayed is a very unpleasant experience. Furthermore, these animals may carry diseases that can spread to humans and pets, such as rabies. Our specialists will use live traps to capture and remove skunks for you, or they’ll use a one-way exclusion device to evict skunks from their harborage areas. The most effective ways to control a skunk problem is exclusion and habitat modification.
The most effective ways to control a skunk problem is exclusion and habitat modification. Methods like sealing foundation gaps, replacing and screening broken foundation vents and installing hardware cloth (rat walls) around unprotected sheds and decks are the most effective and permanent ways to keep skunks out.
We recommend keeping pet food inside and securing any trash bins.
Squirrels, bats, raccoons, mice, and birds. We mainly see nuisance wildlife in attics, under decks and in crawl spaces.
Dropping temperatures in the fall push critters into homes. In the spring expecting mothers look for a safe place to have their babies which brings them into homes.
Noises coming from walls and attics, and damage done to exterior of homes.
Secure all vents and openings on the exterior of the home.
Call when you see signs of any wildlife activity within the home. Preventing damage is easier and less costly than repairing it.
This franchise is independently licensed and operated by JRN Wildlife Services, LLC, dba Critter Control of Lima, OH
