Wildlife Removal Services
Groundhog Removal in Northern Virginia
Groundhogs do not damage your house from the inside. They damage it from underneath — a burrow system under the shed, the deck, the porch slab or the AC pad, moving dirt out from under the thing it is supporting.
Licensed in VA (#56104) and MD (#049372). Family-owned, 20+ years, answering 24 hours a day.
What a Burrow Does to a Structure
An adult groundhog is a ten-pound digging animal, and a single burrow system can run twenty to forty feet with several entrances and a chamber a few feet down. The spoil has to go somewhere, which is why you see a mound of fresh dirt at a hole roughly ten inches across.
Dug against a structure, that system takes the support out from under it: shed floors and foundations settling, deck footings and stair stringers dropping, porch and patio slabs cracking, AC pads tilting until the line set is under strain, and retaining walls bulging. On a sloped Northern Virginia lot the burrow also channels stormwater straight to the foundation.
The rest is what people notice first: vegetable gardens and ornamentals grazed to the stem, and holes in the lawn that turn an ankle or catch a mower deck.
Reading the Burrow Before Touching It
A groundhog burrow has a main entrance — the obvious one with the dirt mound — and one or more plunge holes, dug from the inside out and left clean with no spoil. Those are the escape routes, and they are the reason work that only addresses the visible hole fails. We find every opening before anything is closed.
Timing matters too. Groundhogs breed in early spring, with young in the burrow for weeks afterwards. Sealing a system in April with a litter inside is both inhumane and a smell problem under your deck that you cannot get at. It also matters at the other end of the year: they are true hibernators, denning up from roughly October to February, so autumn is the time to get the exclusion in before next year’s animal picks the same hole.
And burrows get inherited. An empty system is prime real estate for the next groundhog, a skunk, a fox or an opossum. Closing the hole properly is what ends the cycle rather than passing it on.
Why Relocation Is Never the Answer
What the nuisance designation does not do is allow relocation.
Which leaves exclusion as the only thing that actually keeps them out, and that is where we put the effort: a dig-proof barrier — heavy galvanised mesh trenched down and turned outward in an L-footer — around the shed, deck or slab. A groundhog that hits mesh a foot down and a foot out gives up and digs somewhere that is not your house.
How the Job Runs
1. Map the system
Every entrance and plunge hole located, the structure checked for settling, and the burrow assessed for young before anything is closed.
2. Remove the animal
Trapping at the active entrances, handled under Virginia’s on-site rules. In spring we confirm there is no litter underneath before the system is closed.
3. Trench a dig-proof barrier
Galvanised mesh trenched in with an outward L-footer along the shed, deck, stoop or slab — the part of the job that is still working in two years.
Why Homeowners Call BEDR
- 20+ years, family-owned — you deal with the people doing the work.
- Licensed in Virginia (#56104) and Maryland (#049372).
- Humane and legal methods — we work inside Virginia’s relocation and protected-species rules, not around them.
- We seal, not just trap — the reason customers do not call us back about the same animal.
- 24/7 answering, with same-day service across Northern Virginia.
- Full restoration in-house — attic cleanup, insulation, chimney caps, crawl space work.
Humane Solutions. Lasting Results.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know it is a groundhog and not something else?
A groundhog hole is about ten inches across with a mound of fresh dirt beside it, usually right against a shed, deck or slab, and you will see the animal out grazing in daylight. Skunk diggings are small cone-shaped divots in the lawn; mole runs are raised ridges with no open hole.
Can you just fill in the hole?
Not as the first step. Filling an occupied burrow traps the animal — and in spring the litter — underneath your structure, and a groundhog will simply dig a new entrance anyway. The order is remove, then barrier, then backfill.
Will you relocate it to the country?
We are straight with customers about this.
Is the burrow really a threat to my shed?
Yes, over time. Burrow systems run twenty to forty feet and the excavated soil comes out from under whatever sits above. Settling shed floors, dropped deck footings, cracked slabs and tilted AC pads are the normal outcome, and on a sloped lot the burrow routes water to your foundation.
When is the best time to deal with them?
Late summer through autumn is ideal — no young underneath and the exclusion is in place before they hibernate and before next spring’s animal arrives. Spring jobs are done, just more carefully.
Get the Burrow Closed Before the Shed Settles
Animal out, barrier trenched in, burrow collapsed. We answer 24 hours a day.
Other Wildlife Removal Services
Squirrel Removal · Raccoon Removal · Bat Removal · Bird Nest Removal · Snake Removal · Skunk Removal · Fox Removal · Opossum Removal · Mole Removal
Where We Work
Fairfax · Alexandria · Arlington · McLean · Vienna · Reston · Herndon · Falls Church · Woodbridge · Fredericksburg · Chantilly · Centreville · King George