Will Poison Get Animals Out of the Attic?

If you’re faced with having to remove animals from your attic, you may have already thought about using poison to do so. Theoretically it’s simple, right? The animal eats the poison, dies, you remove the carcass, job done. But things aren’t that simple, and as you’ll learn next, poison is probably the last thing you’d want to use to get animals out of the attic.

Why poison is actually ineffective: Most kinds of poisons rely on animals ingesting it. And while some may work, the vast majority of poisons are just not that interesting enough to animals. So, you’ll be left with whatever form of poison you chose all around your property and in your attic. Other wildlife you may not have been targeting, or your pets, may get to it and ingest it. Even worse, if you have small children on the premises, you’ll expose them to this unnecessary risk as well.

But let’s say the poison does work. One animal ingesting it will just kill that one animal. It won’t spread to the rest, and in the case of rats or mice, for example, you’re likely facing an entire family or colony. Killing them off one by one with poison is highly inefficient, and it allows them to do a lot of damage before you actually get to all of them, in the unlikely scenario you ever get that far. Furthermore, if the animals in your attic have young ones to take care of, and you kill the mother, you’ll be destroying a whole family of animals instead of relocating them as you ought to.

Last thing to take into account as far as poison goes is the fact that it won’t kill the animal on the exact spot where you set up the poison. The animal will likely move around quite a bit before the toxins take effect, and the creature may end up in hard to reach places, or places you’ll never find it in. You’re then left with a decomposing carcass that not only smells bad, but can also pose a significant health risk, along with attracting insects and even other wildlife to your property.

Viable alternatives: From one-way door exclusion funnels, to traps, to live cages, to clicking on the Hire a Pro tab on this website, you’ve got a lot of options on your hands. Viable, effective options. Prevention is worth a pound of cure, so taking the necessary steps to prevent and stop the intrusion from happening in the first place is not only safer, easier and cheaper, but it can lead to a lot of spared physical and financial effort in the long run. Find and patch up entrances to your attic. And always try and make an effort to relocate the animals in a safe environment where they won’t pose a threat to the preexisting wildlife population, and where they won’t suffer a painful death due to competition within their own species.

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