Wildlife Removal Cost Calculator

About $575 for a raccoon with three entry points sealed, $425 for squirrels, $650 for bats, $350 for a snake and $525 for an opossum, skunk or groundhog. The number of openings matters more than the animal: one entry point takes the raccoon figure to $400 and six take it to $825. Reported figures put wildlife removal at $200 to $1,500 overall, with entry point repair and exclusion alone at $300 to $1,500.

Because catching the animal is the cheap part and keeping the next one out is the job. A live trap is about $45 of equipment and an hour of time; finding every opening and closing it in galvanized steel is what actually solves the problem, and it is most of the cost. A $200 quote to remove a raccoon is a quote for the cheap half — the animal leaves, the hole stays, and next spring something else finds it.

Three to six on a typical house and a dozen on a neglected one, which surprises people who think there is one hole. An animal that got in through a rotted soffit corner got in because the whole soffit line is the same age. Look at soffit and fascia corners, the point where a roof of one pitch meets a wall, gable and ridge vents, plumbing and cable penetrations, uncapped chimneys, and at grade under decks, porches and sheds. Sealing one of six openings is sealing none of them.

Nineteen gauge galvanized hardware cloth in half-inch mesh, or sheet metal flashing, screwed down with washers rather than stapled. What does not work is what a cheap job uses: a raccoon has hands and the strength of a small dog and pulls plastic vent covers off and tears light mesh; a squirrel has chisel teeth and chews through expanding foam in an afternoon and soft aluminum in a week; and a bat or a mouse gets through any gap over about a quarter of an inch. It is worth looking at the finished work.

They should never be, and doing it is the most common way a wildlife job becomes a much worse one. Spring and early summer is when the animal in your attic has a litter, so sealing the opening then puts the adult outside and the young inside — and within a week that is a dead-animal problem inside a wall, which is a demolition job rather than a wildlife one. A competent operator checks for young and either removes them by hand or waits. Somebody who offers to seal a chimney in May without checking is telling you what the rest of their work is like.

Not always, and most states regulate it more than people expect. Many prohibit relocating trapped wildlife beyond a short distance or at all, because of disease transmission — so the humane-sounding promise to release an animal in the woods is sometimes simply not lawful. Bats are protected almost everywhere, cannot be killed, and cannot be excluded during the maternity season. Some species need a permit to handle. Ask what your state's rules are and what will actually happen to the animal; a clear answer tells you the operator knows the law.

Almost never in the base price, and it is quoted separately everywhere for good reason. Removing droppings and soiled insulation and sanitizing adds about 45% here, and a heavy accumulation more than doubles the job — reported attic cleanup runs $1,000 to $4,000 and bat guano $500 to $5,000, so a years-deep accumulation exceeds anything this page shows. It is a health matter rather than a tidiness one: raccoon droppings can carry a roundworm whose eggs persist for years, and accumulated bat and bird droppings grow a fungus that causes a lung disease.

Sometimes legally, usually unwisely, and it does not solve the problem anyway. Many states require a permit or a license to trap and move wildlife, and several prohibit relocation outright. Beyond the law, a trapped raccoon or skunk in a cage is a short-tempered animal that has to be transported by somebody who knows how, and a bat must not be handled at all because of rabies exposure rules. And the trap is the part that was never the expensive half: without the exclusion work, catching one animal just makes room for the next.

By when you hear it and what it sounds like. Squirrels are active at dawn and during the day, and sound like something rolling or scratching in short bursts. Raccoons are nocturnal, heavy, and sound like a person moving around — thumps rather than scratches, often with vocal chittering. Mice and rats run at night and sound like scratching inside walls rather than overhead. Bats leave at dusk in a stream, which is the easiest identification of all: stand outside twenty minutes before dark and watch the roof line. Droppings are the other tell, and an operator should identify the species before quoting.

The good operators offer one, often one to five years on the sealed openings, and asking about it is the fastest way to separate the trades. A company that prices the exclusion properly and stands behind it is selling a repair; a company that prices the trapping and treats the sealing as an extra is selling a visit. Read what the warranty covers — usually re-entry at a point they sealed, not a new opening elsewhere — and keep the written list of entry points, because that list is what the warranty is actually about.