Animals in Your Attic? A Gulf Coast Homeowner's Guide

You can usually narrow it to one or two species before anyone climbs a ladder:

• Fast scratching and scampering during the day, especially morning — gray squirrels. They chew visible holes in fascia and soffits. Squirrel removal →
• Slow, heavy thumps and "footsteps" at night — raccoons. Look for torn soffits and droppings on the roof. Raccoon removal →
• Fluttering, squeaking at dusk and dawn, plus dark pellets on the porch — bats. Bat removal →
• Light scurrying at night — flying squirrels (colonies) or rats. Both need a full seal-out.
• Occasional slithering sounds, plus shed skins — a snake following rodents. Snake removal →
• A smell but no noise — something has died in a wall or the insulation. Dead animal removal →

Do:

• Listen for timing and note where the noise is loudest — this halves the inspection time.
• Walk the outside of the house and photograph any torn soffit, bent vent or gap at the roofline, especially if your roof took storm damage in recent hurricane seasons.
• Keep pets out of the attic space and away from droppings.
• Call two companies for inspections — most are free when you book the work.

Don't:

• Don't seal the hole yet. Trap an animal inside and it either dies in your walls or chews a new, bigger hole. Sealing comes after removal, or alongside one-way doors.
• Don't use poison. It's illegal for most wildlife, inhumane, and the animal usually dies in the wall — a second, smellier problem.
• Don't corner the animal. Raccoons bite when trapped, and bats in living spaces should be treated as a rabies exposure question for your county health department.
• Don't sweep up guano or droppings dry. Disturbing them aerosolizes genuine pathogens — leave cleanup to a crew with respirators.

This is the most common point of confusion, so here it is plainly: county and city animal services do not remove wildlife from private property. Mobile County and City of Mobile animal services — like Escambia County Animal Services in Pensacola — handle domestic animals: stray dogs, dangerous animals at large, bite reports, and dead animals on public roads. A raccoon in your attic is legally your responsibility as the property owner.

What that means in practice:

• Stray dog or aggressive animal in the street? Call your city/county animal services — that's their job.
• Roadkill on a public road? Also animal services or public works.
• Any wild animal in your attic, walls, chimney, crawlspace or yard structures? Private wildlife removal company. In Alabama, look for a DCNR Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator (NWCO) permit; in Florida, FWC-compliant nuisance wildlife trappers. Our directory lists companies serving the area.
• Sick or injured wildlife on the ground? A licensed wildlife rehabilitator can sometimes help — but they treat and release; they don't do removals from structures.

So "free wildlife removal" effectively doesn't exist for private property — budget $150–$750for a typical job (full ranges on the cost page) and treat any company that advertises "free removal" with suspicion: the cost reappears somewhere.

• Hurricanes reset the clock. Every tropical system loosens soffits and vents, and displaces animals from damaged trees at the same time. Post-storm years bring a spike in attic intrusions — inspect your roofline after any storm that brought down limbs nearby.
• Bat season has legal edges. From roughly April through August, bat pups can't fly and exclusions are restricted — Florida outright prohibits them mid-April to mid-August. Summer is for inspection and prep; late August onward is exclusion season. Details →
• Armadillos are a lawn-and-foundation issue, not an attic one. If the damage is outside — plowed lawn, holes along the slab — that's a different playbook. Armadillo removal →
• It's always "season" here. The humid subtropics don't give wildlife an off-season the way a hard winter does up north. Year-round pressure is why exclusion pays for itself faster here than almost anywhere else.