Opossum Control: How to Get Opossums to Leave Your Yard and Stay Out

The cat food bowl on the porch is empty every morning, the trash can lid is off, or your flashlight catches a gray animal with a pointed face and a long bare tail under the deck. That is an opossum. Opossums are mostly harmless and shy, but they will settle in wherever food and shelter are easy. This guide helps you confirm what you have, take away what draws it in and close off the spaces it uses, without traps or poison in most cases.

How to identify an opossum

The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial in North America. It lives across the eastern and central US and along the West Coast, but is absent from the Rockies and most of the Plains.

• Size: about as big as a house cat, 2 to 3 feet long including the tail. Most weigh 4 to 7 pounds, though large males can be heavier.
• Fur: coarse and usually grayish, though color ranges from nearly white to nearly black.
• Face and ears: long, pointed face and rounded, hairless ears.
• Tail: long, bare and rat-like. It can grip, so opossums use it to carry nest material and to steady themselves when climbing.
• Tracks: like small hands with widely spread toes. The hind foot has a thumb-like toe, which tells it apart from a raccoon print.

If you have a masked animal in the attic, read our raccoon guide. For a black-and-white animal under the deck, see the skunk guide. Small gnawing animals indoors are more likely rats.

How opossums behave

Opossums come out at night and in low light. They see poorly but hear well. They are slow, topping out around 7 miles per hour, so they escape by climbing or ducking into a hole rather than running.

A threatened opossum will hiss, growl, bare its many sharp teeth and release a musk from glands near the tail. The musk smells a little like skunk, so an opossum under the porch is sometimes blamed on a skunk. If that bluff fails, it may “play possum”: it rolls onto its side, goes limp, closes its eyes and lets its tongue hang out, and its heartbeat slows. UC IPM describes this as a nervous shock reaction. The opossum recovers and leaves when it gets the chance, so leave it alone and it will usually be gone soon.

Opossums are not aggressive unless cornered.

Signs of opossums

• Pet food bowls emptied overnight, sometimes with the opossum coming in through a pet door.
• Trash cans tipped or opened, and compost dug through.
• Fallen fruit, berries and grapes eaten in the garden.
• Droppings on garden paths and patios.
• An animal sheltering under steps, porches, decks, sheds or in a garage or crawl space.
• A pet with bite wounds after a fight. Opossums usually avoid trouble, but their teeth can do real damage to a dog or cat.

Why opossums show up

Opossums eat almost anything: insects, snails, frogs, eggs, small animals, fruit, nuts, plants and carrion. Near homes that list expands to garbage, compost, pet food and birdseed. They do not hibernate, and they usually move into shelter they find: old dens left by other animals, brush piles, gaps in woodpiles and the space under buildings.

Females raise young once or twice a year. Newborns are tiny and spend about two months attached inside the mother’s pouch, then ride on her back for a few weeks before heading off on their own around 3 months old. A female with young under your shed in spring or summer will usually move on once the young can travel.

Health risks

Rabies in opossums is very rare, according to the wildlife agencies in Connecticut and Georgia. That doesn’t make an opossum safe to handle. UC IPM lists leptospirosis, tuberculosis, tularemia and toxoplasmosis among the diseases opossums can carry, along with fleas, ticks, mites and lice. Flea-borne typhus is a concern in some areas, including parts of Southern California. Connecticut’s wildlife agency also advises horse owners to keep opossums away from feed and water, because opossums are linked to a nerve disease in horses (equine protozoal myeloencephalitis).

Keep pets inside at night if an opossum is around, and don’t let them fight with it.

Do not try to pick up an opossum, even one that looks dead. It may only be playing dead, and it has sharp teeth.

How to get rid of opossums, step by step

1. Remove food. Feed pets indoors, or bring bowls in before dark. Close or lock the pet door at night. Store pet food, birdseed and animal feed in metal or heavy plastic bins with tight lids.
2. Lock down garbage. Use cans with tight lids, and strap the lids with bungee cords if animals pry them off. Keep meat and table scraps out of the compost pile.
3. Clean up the yard. Pick up fallen fruit and nuts promptly. Stack firewood tightly, and keep scrap lumber about 18 inches off the ground so it can’t become a den.
4. Trim the approach routes. Cut back overgrown shrubs and keep tree branches at least 5 feet from the roof.
5. Make sure the animal is gone. Smooth a layer of flour about 1/8 inch thick in front of the opening it uses. Check it after dark. Tracks heading out with no fresh activity afterward mean it is safe to seal. In spring and summer, watch for young before you close anything.
6. Close off the space. Block openings under stairs, porches, decks, sheds and the house with 1/4-inch hardware cloth. Bury the bottom edge up to 6 inches deep, as UC IPM suggests, or bend it outward along the ground and bury it a few inches, as Connecticut’s wildlife agency describes, so the animal can’t dig under. The same mesh keeps out rats and mice, and our rodent-proofing guide covers smaller gaps.
7. Protect gardens and poultry. UC IPM suggests a 4-foot poultry wire fence with the top 12 to 18 inches left loose and bent outward so it flops back when an opossum climbs it. An electric wire about 3 inches out from the top of a wire fence also stops climbers. Lock chickens in secure housing at night.

Bright yard lighting may also help, since Connecticut’s wildlife agency notes opossums avoid well-lit areas. Motion-activated sprinklers may scare an opossum, but the effect often fades within a few days for one that already uses your yard.

What not to do

• No poison. No pesticides are registered for opossums, and rodent baits must never be used on them.
• No mothballs or ammonia. UC IPM notes they are not recommended for this use and using them this way is not legal. Missouri’s conservation department adds that mothballs don’t work and the naphthalene in them is toxic.
• Skip commercial repellents. None have shown real results against opossums.

Trapping and the law

Opossums are not trap-shy and are easy to catch in a cage trap, which is why trapping looks like the quick fix. The legal part is harder, and the rules differ by state:

• California classifies opossums as nongame mammals. Relocating one takes written permission from the state wildlife agency, and drowning a trapped animal is illegal.
• Missouri lists the opossum as a furbearer and game mammal. A damage-causing opossum may be trapped without a permit, subject to restrictions.
• Connecticut allows trapping by a licensed trapper during the regulated season.

Most states have open hunting or trapping seasons for opossums, but protections and permit rules vary. Before you set a trap, check with your state wildlife agency and your city or county. Moving a trapped opossum to a park or the woods can need a permit, as it does in California. And a trap does nothing about the pet food and open space under the deck that drew the first opossum in.

When to call a professional

Most opossum problems are DIY: take the food away, wait for the animal to leave and close the gap. Call a licensed wildlife control operator when:

• An opossum is inside the house, attic, garage or crawl space and won’t leave on its own.
• A female with young is under the house and you can’t wait for them to move on.
• You need an animal trapped and want it done legally for your state. UC IPM notes a professional wildlife control operator can handle trapping and disposal.
• An animal has died under a structure and needs to be found and removed.
• You want the whole deck or shed perimeter screened with buried wire and don’t want to dig it yourself.

A typical visit includes an inspection for entry points, a check for young, removal or a one-way door where your state allows it, and installation of buried mesh around the opening. Ask whether they are licensed for wildlife work in your state, what happens to any animal they catch and whether the exclusion work is guaranteed.

Our guide to choosing a pest control company covers licensing and contracts, and pest control costs explains what goes into a quote. See the wildlife hub for other animals around the house.

Opossum questions

Are opossums good to have around? They eat insects, snails and carrion, and they rarely damage buildings. If one is just passing through and not getting into food or under the house, you can leave it alone.

I found an opossum lying still in the yard. Is it dead? It may be playing dead. Keep pets and children away and check again in an hour or two. It will usually have left.