SA Footy

Just moved into a new place only to find out I'm sharing it with at least two possums. I've worked out where they are getting in which is a pretty small gap under the tiles outside in the corner of the unit. Caught one of them leaving last night walking acorss the top of the fence, bloody huge thing bigger than a cat size of a small dog but assured myself they weren't actually getting into the roof just on top of it due to how small the 'entry' point is.

However, tonight went out for a look and it's sitting there on top of the roof above the hole looking at me, tried to scare it off and it just swung itself down by it's big bushy tail and somehow squeezed itself inside the hole.

I don't want to hurt it in anyway and really I only hear them fighting a little bit in the ceiling above the lounge room around 6-7pm each night. Supposedly possums keep rats out of the roof so that is something.

Any advice on how to proceed? What info I've found some suggest it's best to just leave them in there if they're not waking you up at night or causing too much trouble.

Put a light up in your roof cavity. They don't like light. After a few nights they should move on.

... or so I believe. YMMV.

Gozu wrote:I only hear them fighting a little bit

Are u sure they are fighting????

Piss on your roof, they will get the message. seriously

Possums can actually lift tiles, I've seen one "emerge" in this fashion from a tile roof. Pest controllers can only relocate them 50m from where they catch them. You could try putting naphthalene (moth balls) in the roof space as they hate the smell. This worked for us.

CALL THE PUNK!

Ive got one too, noisy little bastard. Only runs around on our tin roof and eats our plum tree. Use to be two and they play fought all night until one fell off and broke its neck. Mines not IN our roof so was told a pest eradicator couldnt get rid of it.

Friends of our had them and caught them in a trap and took them to a nature park about 4km away, gave them some food and released them but three days later they came back

Fighting...

I think they might be doing something more friendly than fighting.

Contact your local council. They may provide a loan trap to catch them.

you can get a trap from rspca too i think...use rose petals for bait, they love em!

I had one fall down my chimney and was trapped between the fire place and the closed grill. I rang the council who didnt want a bar of it, so I rang the RSPCA who told me to, and I quote "open your front door and shoo it out"
I told RSPCA there is no guarantees on the possums safety if I do that...so they came over within the hour and removed it for me.

CENTURION wrote:CALL THE PUNK!

Yep, give Punk Rooster a call (or PM)

MW wrote:I had one fall down my chimney and was trapped between the fire place and the closed grill. I rang the council who didnt want a bar of it, so I rang the RSPCA who told me to, and I quote "open your front door and shoo it out"
I told RSPCA there is no guarantees on the possums safety if I do that...so they came over within the hour and removed it for me.

and then they probably killed it themselves

Dog_ger wrote:Fighting...

I think they might be doing something more friendly than fighting.

Contact your local council. They may provide a loan trap to catch them.

Well if they werent fighting, they must have increadible stamina

Mitcham Council didnt want a bar of them and told us we could not move them

Footy Chick wrote:

MW wrote:I had one fall down my chimney and was trapped between the fire place and the closed grill. I rang the council who didnt want a bar of it, so I rang the RSPCA who told me to, and I quote "open your front door and shoo it out"
I told RSPCA there is no guarantees on the possums safety if I do that...so they came over within the hour and removed it for me.

and then they probably killed it themselves

Nah they released it back in front of my house.

Possums are cute and cuddly creatures- just go up in the roof, grab them, and tickle them on the belly as you relocate them to a tree outside...

they taste ok too.

Possum Solutions

CENTURION wrote:they taste ok too.

They are a protected species iirc

if you are indigenous nothing is protected so long as you are going to eat it, I know this bloke that regularly eats snake, goanna etc etc