Even the hardest hearts will get a little excited when they see a unique critter in their yard. While strange animals can be exciting to see through your front window, they’re less enjoyable to entertain when they start to cause damage to your property.
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Unfortunately, because animals don’t know the ins and outs of property value, there are some that are more likely to cause damage to your home than others. These include:
- Skunks – Nothing smells worse than skunk spray. If you think it’s bad to pass an upset skunk on the road, you don’t want to imagine what it’d be like if a skunk sprayed your home. If a skunk gets indoors or is otherwise startled near your home, you may find yourself contending with that smell for months at a time.
- Rodents – Rodents can include all manner of small, fuzzy creatures, from mice to squirrels and chipmunks to rats. These creatures will all look at your home in the same way: as a potential habitat. All rodents can make their way into the walls of your home, where they can turn your insulation into nests and your electrical wires into a shocking snack.
- Snakes – Snakes don’t pose a structural threat to your home. They can, however, crawl into pipes and refuse to leave, especially if they get stuck. They can also pose a threat to your family’s health if you find them backed into a corner. You’ll always want to work with animal control if you find a snake in your home, as they are entirely unsafe to deal with, regardless of what species they are.
- Raccoons – Raccoons, despite their cuddly appearance, are some of the worst pests to have to remove from your home. These critters can dig in deep when they want to, making nests out of your insulation and having babies that know nothing but the comfort of the indoors.
- Bears – You’re not too likely to see a bear in North Carolina, but it isn’t impossible. A bear’s primary threat to your home can be based on its size. These creatures don’t understand the value of your property and can throw their weight around into unprotected structural supports, windows or furniture.
- Pigeons – Pigeons like to build nests in the gutters around your home, as do many other types of birds. If you don’t clean your gutters regularly, rain runoff may start to clog up in your gutters and run off down toward your foundation.
- Deer – Deer are non-aggressive creatures that, like bears, often forget their own size. They can accidentally damage your structural supports and lawn furniture as they wander through your yard.
- Groundhogs – Groundhogs can build burrows up to 45 feet in length in the soil beneath your home if they’re not caught early on. Those burrows can destabilize your foundation and cause it to start sinking if they aren’t quickly filled.
- Bats – Bats don’t pose much of a structural threat to your home, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe to contend with. These creatures can bring all manner of bacteria indoors and can fill your basement or attic with guano.
- Woodpeckers – Woodpeckers will look for a meal or a home in any unprotected wooden features you have outside of your home. Even if you manage to shoo them away, you may find yourself having to fill or replace wooden beams with holes up and down their lengths.
- Vultures – Vultures aren’t common in Raleigh and Winston-Salem, NC, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever see them. These birds love to play with the more reflective elements of your roof. If your shingles catch the light, vultures in the area may take the opportunity to dive down and rip them straight off of your roof.
While these animals can cause damage all around your home, you aren’t short on options for responding. Not only can you reach out to your local animal control experts to remove these critters from your property, but you can also work with foundation, basement, and crawl space contractors to repair any damage done. To get started, you can give the professionals at Tar Heel Basement Systems a call for a home inspection and free services quote.
