so a customer calls and says they want you to come and trap some raccoons that they are hearing in there ceiling you get there and there is no sign of a raccoon anywere. but they still insist it is raccoons. so you set a trap outside the house by the only place you can find a coon might be able to enter. the next day there is a oppossum in the trap. the homeowner says the dont care about the opossums so just let it out. what do you do in this situation if you let it out it is going to just get back in the trap and it has cost me a potential coon catch.

Charge for the catch and remove anyways. Also set a positive set with no bait. Give it a week or so and then seal it up.

Set more than one cage and mark the hole. Mark the possum and charge every time you catch it! lol Blaze orange marking paint. lol

I charge for every animal I catch. Just let them know they will pay if you happen to catch it again. Like the idea of the paint! Would be great for a cat that will not stay home, we all know they do not leave the yard, right!

Was it a positive set? If so then there is no way I wouldn't
Charge them! That would be like someone calling
And saying they have a gray squirrel in there attic
And you catch a red squirrel! Woops I better let it go it's
Not gray! Lol stick to your guns your solving there problem!

Mistake number one, letting the customer buffalo you into setting a trap for a fictional creature. If there truly is no sign of raccoons entering the structure, no sign of squirrels or bats then its mice and your wasting your time doing anything else. Dont let your clients dictate how you solve their problems, you are the pro...they called you! I know this sounds gruff but you gotta take a stand or people will push you around, be confident enough to solve the problem and tell them the truth.

Pretty much sums it up right there.

If you're dealing with a wildlife problem in a structure, you can't solve it dealing as though it is a species-specific problem. A hole a coon can enter is a hole ANYTHING can (and will) enter. Trapping and exclusion will provide a solution, and often requires removing several species.

One of the biggest problems you will find is trying to explain to people that gaps and openings are used by more than one type of animal. I have people say they "don't mind the squirrels in the attic" but they HATE BATS and want them gone. No way to do a successful bat exclusion with squirrels (or any other animal) still using a structure. Always have to start with the biggest critters and work your way down to the smallest (bats or flyers).

If it was a positive set then you should charge them. If you just set a trap on the ground with sardines in it and you didn't tell them you charge for incidentals, well then you learned a lesson.

Should have made a funnel right into the trap from the hole so only animals coming out are caught no bait used . Hard to say where the animal is climbing up did you look on the down spouts for tracks or scratches . Is there rub marks around the hole or a Oder . Was there coon poo on the roof . If its not a coon then what are they hearing then they must be hearing something . Was the possum caught on the ground or up on the roof . The day of the guy coming out throwing bait in some cage then setting outback catching every animal in the neighbor hood is long gone people just can't afford it doesn't solve the problem and destroys future jobs in the niegbor hood

i just let it go and told them if i caught it again i would have to charge them. i caught it on the roof but i dont think it was the one entering the house. the hole is on the under side of the soffit. i told them i didnt see any signs of raccoons and i thought it was probly a squirrel from the looks of things but they insisted they had seen them there in the past. i didnt catch any more opposums and didnt catch a coon but i did catch a squirrel and they said that they hadnt heard anything all day. so i am going to remove the squirrel and close up the hole if they havent heard anything else i a couple of days. i am also doing some prevention work in the form of removeing some branches that are touching the roof. i am going to put in my contracts that incidentals will be charged said amount. i am just going to chalk this up as a good learning experience. thanks for the help everyone

x2 and what ron said,

you know what you find out, don't let them lead you down a fictional rabbit trail and then you lose money trying to catch what ain't there

I just completed a job where the lady had her screened in porch torn out. I went to look at it and the way the screen was torn and the sign around it screamed "Coon". She started running down the list of critters that it could be, "Fox? Bobcat? Fox squirrel?" Ya, da, ya, da,...

I answered, "No, Mam. This is classic coon." I set the traps. The first night I caught a possum. She was ready for me to pull my traps right then because I had been wrong and her problem critter was a possum!

"I don't think so. I stood by my first diagnosis. Classic coon." I talked her into letting the traps stay in place for a couple more nights. The very next morning there was a huge female coon in the same trap that caught the possum the night before. Just the one but her problem was solved.

If you're not sure what you're dealing with or need to prove to the customer that you may have more knowledge about this kind of thing than they do, a game camera will always end the argument.

I use mine often as much for my benefit as theirs. It's so much easier to target an animal when you know what animal to target.