The opossum is a strange neighbor: North America's only marsupial, a walking tick-disposal unit, and the animal most likely to be hissing at you from under the porch right now. They don't attack, they don't dig like groundhogs, and they don't chew like squirrels — but an opossum denning under a deck, shed, or crawlspace brings fleas and droppings with it, and when one dies down there, you'll learn exactly how small a gap a very large smell can come through. Montgomery Wildlife traps, evicts, excludes, and sanitizes opossum den sites across all five of our counties, with exclusion work backed by our written 10-year guarantee.
Opossum inside the house or garage? Call (267) 647-6674 — indoor wildlife calls get moved to the front of the line.
"Found the den under the shed, got the opossum out, and sealed it so nothing moves back in."
— Placeholder review, pending real GBP review
How We Work
Our Opossum Removal Process
1. Find the den, read the situation. We inspect the property to pin down where the animal is sheltering, what opening it's using, and — critically — whether young are in the picture. Opossums are squatters, not builders; they take over gaps dug by groundhogs, torn lattice, and crawlspace vents that lost their screens years ago.
2. You pick the outcome. Some homeowners want the opossum trapped and gone; others, once they hear what these animals do to the local tick population, choose eviction-and-exclusion — out from under the structure, sealed out permanently, but still patrolling the neighborhood. Both are humane, both are handled in accordance with Pennsylvania Game Commission regulations, and the choice is genuinely yours. When trapping is the call, opossums make it easy: they're curious, food-motivated, and rarely trap-shy, so most are caught within a night or two. Traps are checked daily, monitored between visits, and never left to sit.
3. Seal, sanitize, guarantee. Once we've confirmed the space is empty — no adult, no young — every access point gets a permanent barrier, typically heavy mesh trenched into the ground so nothing digs back under. Long-occupied dens get cleaned and treated: droppings, food debris, and nesting material out, sanitizer in. The exclusion goes under our written 10-year warranty.
Our Opossum Work
Photos from Recent Jobs
Opossum In Live Trap
Under-Deck Den Opening
Buried Mesh Apron Install
Sanitized Crawlspace
Case Study: Delaware County
A Havertown homeowner heard shuffling under the front porch of her 1950s cape and assumed the groundhog was back. Our camera check found an opossum instead — a female with young in the pouch, using the old groundhog dig as a ready-made den. The homeowner's first instinct was relocation, but after learning how many ticks one opossum clears from a yard in a season, she chose eviction-and-exclusion. We waited out the den with a one-way setup so mother and pouch young left together, then trenched mesh around the full porch perimeter and rebuilt the lattice. The porch has stayed empty, and the opossum presumably still works the block.
Know Your Opossums
Biology & Behavior: The Misunderstood Marsupial
The Virginia opossum is the continent's only pouched mammal — a fact with a practical upside for humane removal: a mother carries her babies with her, in the pouch and later on her back, so getting the female means the whole family stays together. Adults run roughly the size of a house cat, work the night shift alone, and never stay anywhere long. Unlike raccoons or groundhogs, opossums keep no permanent address; they drift from shelter to shelter, which is why the one under your deck this week may wander off on its own — and why a new one finds the same gap a month later if it isn't sealed.
The mouth full of teeth — fifty of them, the most of any land mammal on the continent — is mostly theater. An opossum's entire defensive playbook is hiss, drool, show teeth, and if that fails, keel over. The famous "playing dead" isn't a clever act; it's an involuntary faint under extreme stress.
And the redemption arc: opossums are tick vacuums. A single animal can rid a yard of thousands of ticks in a season — no small thing in Pennsylvania, which logs more Lyme disease cases than nearly any state in the country. They're also remarkably poor hosts for rabies; their body temperature runs too low for the virus to take hold easily. It's why plenty of our clients decide they want the opossum out from under the house but not out of the neighborhood.
Risks & Concerns
Fleas, Droppings & the Smell You Can't Find
The opossum itself isn't the main problem — its passengers are. These animals carry fleas, ticks, mites, and lice in numbers, and a den under your crawlspace puts that whole ecosystem a few floor joists from your living room. Flea problems that "came out of nowhere" often trace straight to a den under the structure, especially in homes with pets.
The den itself degrades fast. Opossums eat where they sleep and aren't tidy about either, so an occupied space accumulates droppings, food scraps, and parasite load — and in warm weather, the smell starts finding its way indoors.
Then there's the call we get most: the smell that appears overnight and gets worse by the day. Opossums live hard, short lives — a few years at most — and they frequently die in the very spaces they den in. A decomposing opossum under a deck or inside a crawlspace produces an odor out of all proportion to the animal's size, and it does not improve on its own. We locate the carcass, remove it, sanitize the space, and seal the opening that let the animal in — because the gap that admitted this one is already advertised to the next.
Long-Term Prevention
Why Trapping Alone Never Ends It
Here's the honest economics of opossum work: because the animals are nomadic, removal without exclusion is a subscription, not a solution. The den under your shed is real estate, and the listing goes back up the day the current tenant leaves. Companies that set a trap, collect a fee, and drive away are selling you the same job on a delay.
We close the listing. Buried mesh aprons around decks, porches, and sheds; fitted screens on crawlspace vents; rebuilt lattice that looks like it belongs on the house. Then we point out the attractants worth fixing — pet food on the patio, loose trash can lids, fallen fruit under the tree — so your property stops making the case for itself. For the whole-property version of this work, see our Wildlife Exclusion page.
What Customers Say
Opossum Removal Reviews
"Something had died under our sunroom and we couldn't even tell where the smell was coming from. They found it — an opossum, way back in the crawlspace — removed it, treated the area, and screened every vent. The smell was gone in days and nothing has gotten under there since."
Placeholder review
Lansdale · pending real GBP review
"An opossum was raiding our cans every night and hissing at the dog. One visit to trap it, one visit to seal under the shed. Professional from start to finish."
Placeholder review
Roxborough · pending real GBP review
Common Questions
Opossum Removal FAQ
Far less than the performance suggests. The hiss-and-teeth routine is bluff, rabies is genuinely rare in opossums, and the animal would much rather faint than fight. That said, any cornered wild animal can bite, so keep your distance and your dog leashed, and let us handle the hands-on part.
We inspect free of charge and put a written quote in front of you before any work starts. The number depends on whether it's a simple trap-out, whether the structure needs exclusion, and whether a long-occupied den needs sanitation. No surprises at the end.
This is where opossums are kind to everyone involved: the young ride in the mother's pouch or on her back, so they travel together. We still verify — timing checks and camera monitoring before anything is sealed — because closing a structure on pouch young that got stashed is the one mistake this job doesn't forgive. Nothing gets sealed until we're certain the space is empty.
Around here, both words mean the same animal: the Virginia opossum. "Possum" is just the casual American shorthand. Australia has true possums — a different family entirely — but none of them are under your deck in Pennsylvania.
Quite possibly — this week's opossum is a drifter by nature. But the vacancy you're left with is the problem: an unsealed den gets a new occupant, and not always an opossum. The other risk of waiting is the animal dying in there, which converts a free problem into a smell you'll pay anything to end. Sealing the space is what actually closes the file.
It's the middle path: we get the opossum out from under the structure and permanently seal it out, but we don't remove it from the area. It keeps eating ticks — thousands a season — and your deck stops being its bedroom. Plenty of clients in this Lyme-heavy region land on exactly this option, and we're glad to walk you through it.
Yes — it's one of our most common opossum calls. We trace the odor, open access if needed, remove the carcass, sanitize and deodorize the space, and seal the entry point so the sequel never gets made.