Low Tech Animal Entry Monitoring

There is an opening of some shape or form that you believe may be allowing raccoons or squirrels or some other nuisance animal into your attic or other part of the house.

How can you be sure it’s an active entrance- that animals are currently coming in or out?

Today’s post presents a quick, cheap, and easy Do-It-Yourself tip to monitor a suspected entry point for a nuisance animal.

While we often employ the use of cameras to give us definitive knowledge of animal activities in suspect areas, we often use this low tech “trick of the trade” to guide our course of action too.

Hole Monitoring Trick of the Trade: Tape

By simply creating an obstruction with tape, you can easily see if something has gone in or out since the tape’s installation.

Tape also catches pieces of hair, giving more evidence and the ability to identify the animal.

In video below, Ryan explains this topic as he used it on a recent raccoon job.

Whether or not an animal is still using an entry/exit is an important question because:

we don’t want to make a repair and seal an animal inside-that only leads to more problems!
an animal that uses that space could have been out of the space when the tape block was put in place but intends to return

If there is no activity for a reasonable amount of time, it prudent to make the repair to keep them out.

Raccoon and Squirrel Clues

By simply creating a soft block with tape we can easily see if something has gone in or out since this soft block was installed.

The tape often catches hair which can be examined to give knowledge of what kind of animal we’re dealing with.

Also, how the entry through the tape was made helps differentiate between species.

Raccoons going through will usually tear and pull and make a bigger opening.

Squirrels will probably leave most of the block in place making a more delicate hole in a corner. These aren’t hard and fast rules, but they are often helpful clues.

In the case presented in the video, Ryan knew there was at least another raccoon to deal with.

This is important because he didn’t want to make a repair with the animal inside or have the new repair quickly damaged. Both of these scenarios only lead to more problems.