The splendor and beauty of nature are wonderful to enjoy in your backyard, but nature needs to stay in its place. When possums, raccoons, squirrels, rats and other varmints start invading your home and its vicinity, something must be done. Fortunately, possum removal doesn’t have to be difficult. A little bit of common sense will carry you through.
The first thing to realize is that the possum has good reason to be in your backyard. You have something back there that possums want. They might just be traveling from one spot to another, but usually they’re not. Usually, the yard in question will be some place they want to live or have something they want to eat.
The first step is to stop giving them anything to eat. Control food and edible waste in the backyard. Keep garbage covered. If there is a compost pit, then make sure it is located somewhere safe and far away. Never put meat or other animal products in a compost pit, as this is only a beacon to possums and other critters.
The possums might be nesting on your property, in outbuildings like a shed or a garage, or even worse, on your house. This makes a lot of sense from the possum’s point of view. Your house is nice and dry, and it’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Any possum worth its salt is going to try to get into the space under or over your home and make some babies. You want to prevent this at all costs. What’s more, if the worst happens and there is a nest in your home, you have to be sure to get the babies out from wherever they’re hiding. A bunch of dead possum pups is more than enough to put an unholy stink in the house. Fortunately, there’s one good trick for getting the possum to go and take their litter with them. Possums are cowardly creatures, and they will generally flee from even the slightest hint of conflict. Simply disturbing their habitat is often enough to cause them to abandon it, at least temporarily. All you have to do is identify the entrance they are using to get into your space and cover it loosely. Don’t seal it off yet. Just cover it for a couple days. This will often be enough to scare the possums into leaving and taking their litter with them. After the requisite couple days pass after the eviction notice, then you can go ahead and seal that entrance up forever.
if gentle persuasion does not work, the time has come to try trapping and repellent. A live trap, such as those used for raccoons, baited with a can of cat food or tuna fish, can be sufficient. When the possum is captured, simply transport it to a wooded area far away. A 10-minute car drive should be sufficient to make sure that a possum never finds its way back. They are perfectly safe to transport, though you may want to put a blanket down.
Natural chemical repellents are also a great idea. Mothballs and capsaicin sprays are two examples of responsible, effective possum repellents. If the yard is properly protected, then they may not even be needed. If there is nothing for them to eat and nowhere for them to sleep, then the chances are that the possums will peacefully move on.