More Raccoons Spotted in Cold Weather

When winter comes and it’s cold out, it is lean times for wildlife.

If you don’t want to come nose to nose with a raccoon on your Orlando porch when going out to get your paper, one simple remedy is removing the pet food for the evening.

Raccoons and opossums may travel far and wide looking for something to eat. Raccoons survive naturally on acorns and stream life, but a dog or cat bowl outside your Tampa home is easy pickings.

Your pet won’t starve being without its food until morning and the critters will be tempted to your Orange County doorstep. Raccoons and opossums will also be lured by food in any trash outside that is not in a secure location.

Holes in your Orlando home’s eaves make a fine winter shelter for raccoons, opossums, and squirrels. If they are comfortable in your attic over the next few months they may believe this location is a safe spot to rear their young.

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
811 South Palm Avenue
Sarasota, FL 34236

Yellow Jackets can bring a nasty sting

Yellow Jackets, unlike honey bees, can sting repeatedly without harm to themselves. You’ll usually find them in underground burrows or tree hollows. They build their nests of a paper like subtance from chewing wood pulp. And their nests can be huge in size.

When agitated, they can get very aggressive. We recently had a technician completely covered from head to toe in a beekeeper suit, yet he was stung repeatedly through a tiny opeining in his hat that he did not know about.

If you encounter yellow jackets on your property, do not try to handle them yourself. Call an expert. We recommend  checking out this website for more information, and then CALL us.

866-263-WILD

Nuisance Wildlife Removal

How do I get rid of raccoons in my attic?

The best thing you can do when it comes to raccoons, bats or even opossums in your attic is to call a professional wildlife trapper.

Opossums don’t have a very long life span, and a high percentage of them die where their nest is. If that is in your Florida attic, then you’ll know pretty soon if something has died up there. The pungent odor can make your home unlivable for weeks.

We can offer to catch them, or if it’s too late, retrieve their carcass and treat the area with odor eliminating enzymes. Both dead animal removal and odor control are services we offer at Nuisance Wildlife Removal.

Both bat guano and raccoon droppings can be toxic to humans. Bats stay up high and just poop on everything below them. Raccoons tend to use a common latrine area. If that area is in your attic, its a no mans land of bacteria and disease.

Raccoons commonly are infected with the Baylisascaris roundworm. This is a common parasite in raccoons, some areas of the country have a 70 to 100 percent infection rate. If infected, the raccoons droppings will be full of microscopic round worm eggs, that can stay viable for years, until ingested by a mammal, where it hatches and goes to work on the host’s brain tissue, causing a host of health issues and death.

I would certainly never ingest raccoon poop !

You would be surprised at how easy it can be. If raccoons have lived in your attic, even in the past, their droppings will eventually degrade and turn to dust. If anything stirs that up, those little roundworm eggs become airborn. If the raccoons happened to damage your air conditioning duct work, then that airborn toxin can enter your ventilation system and you could be breathing it right now.

Do you keep your Christmas decorations in the attic? Are they dusty? Be careful wiping those boxes off if you have ever had a bat or raccoon infestation in your attic.

Raccoons go out usually at night, to forage for food. They might decide that your mulch or compost pile seems like a good outdoor bathroom. Just digging through the pile to distribute it may also be distributing a health risk in your yard. Small children are at the highest risk for Baylisascaris roundworm infection due simply to the fact that they touch most things that they see, and their hands go in their mouths more often than older kids and adults.

Don’t take chances with your family’s health

If you hear something walking around or chattering in your attic, call the professionals at Nuisance Wildlife Removal of Florida, at 866-263-WILD. We will assess the situation for FREE, and give you a cost estimate for trapping and removal, sealing all potential entrances to prevent a repeat visit, and complete biological cleanup of you attic space, including complete replacement of your attic insulation. Much of this service can be covered under your home owner’s insurance, and we’ll help you with that too.

866-263-WILD   407-859-9453   941-729-2103

Python Recipes

Poached garlic python steaks

Here is a delightful recipe we’ve found for all that python meat that will be flooding the Florida meat markets soon. Please enjoy, and add your own.

Poached Python steaks with curried garlic and lemon grass sauce

INGREDIENTS
Python Steaks (1 kg)
Shallots (4-5 peeled and sliced)
Turmeric powder (1 tablespoon)
Garlic cloves (5-7 cloves, peeled and pounded)
Ginger (2-3 inches long, peeled and pounded)
Lime wedges
Lemon grass (ten stems, peeled; tender parts finely chopped and pounded)
Paprika (2 tablespoons)
White rice wine Salt (2 tablespoons)
Peanut oil (2 tablespoons)
Spring water (2 quarts)

METHOD
First boil and poach the steaks with lemon peel, rought lemon grass stems, adn skins of shallots, garlic and ginger in the quart of spring water. When the flesh is soft, take the Python steaks out and let cool. Next, saute’ shallots on low heat until lightly brown and add the ginger, garlic and all other spices. Next turn up the heat until the toasted aroma arise from the pot. Add flaked Python, rice wine, and more spring water and reduce heat for 10 minutes. Serve with hot steamed rice and greens and cold crisp Chardonnay wine.

Bon-less Appetit !

Hurricane season is here, but are you ready?

Prevent unexpected guests during storm season

The official Atlantic storm season is from June 1st to November 30th. What we see here alot at Nuisance Wildlife Removal is animals driven into people’s homes by high winds and flooding of their natural habitat. It is only natural to head for high ground as water encroaches.

If you’ve ever looked in your attic or upper crawl space, you can see that it is dark and dry. This is very inviting to a rat or raccoon trying to keep their babies safe and dry during a storm or it’s aftermath.

Nuisance Wildlife Removal Inc. offers free inspections to your home and property, to assure that all possible entrances to your home are covered or excluded, to prevent any non-intended habitation by wildlife during the coming storm season.

 Contact us by calling 941-729-2103 or through the contact form on this website.

Stack Guard

Wildlife can keep finding their way into homes and businesses. It only takes one access point for small animals to enter any dwelling. So, how do you prevent this? Stack Guard.

Stack Guard can prevent damage from nuisance wildlife. Typically, wildlife chews on flashing used to make the stack, leaving holes and the potential for more problems including water damage to your structure.
We now can stop these entryways to your home and business. As the only Wildlife Control Professional buying directly from the manufacturer, we have complete access to their full line of products.

Call today to schedule your wildlife home inspection and find out how Stack Guard can help save you money on future repairs.