Opossum Removal in Delaware

What you are dealing with

The Virginia opossum is North America's only marsupial and it behaves unlike the other animals on this list. It is largely nocturnal, it is not territorial in any meaningful way, and it rarely establishes a long-term den. An individual typically uses a sheltered spot for a few nights and moves on, frequently occupying a space something else dug.

It is also not an aggressive animal. The hissing and open-mouthed display that frightens people is a bluff, and the more familiar response to real threat is the involuntary catatonia that gives the species its idiom. Opossums are poor candidates for the fear they generate.

Where they turn up

Under decks and porches, under sheds sitting on blocks, in crawlspaces through a failed vent or access hatch, in garages left open overnight, and in existing burrows dug by groundhogs or skunks.

Because they move between spaces rather than settling, the opossum you are hearing this week may genuinely be gone next week. That is worth knowing before anyone commits to a removal, and it is also why the durable fix here is almost always closing the space rather than chasing the animal.

When it is not trivial

Two situations make an opossum call more than a nuisance. The first is death in an inaccessible space. Opossums are short-lived and they do die in the crawlspaces and deck cavities they shelter in, and the resulting odour in an enclosed space under a house is severe, persistent and not something that resolves on its own.

The second is a female with young. Opossum young ride on the mother and are dependent for a considerable period, and a removal that separates them leaves young in the structure. As with everything else here, that is worth establishing before work starts rather than discovering afterwards.

Closing the space

The work is exclusion rather than treatment. Deck and porch skirting gets closed with a buried barrier for the same reason it does for groundhogs, because whatever is next to use that space may well be a digger even if this one was not. Crawlspace vents get proper covers, and access hatches get closed so they stay closed.

Removing the attraction matters as much as the barrier. Accessible pet food, unsecured bins, fallen fruit and open compost are what makes a property worth returning to, and a space that has been closed off on a property that still offers a nightly meal tends to produce the next call somewhere else on the same lot.