Serving Alexandria, Virginia
Wildlife Removal in Alexandria, VA
Scratching above a plaster ceiling in a 200-year-old rowhouse is a different job from scratching in a 1990s attic. We remove squirrels, raccoons and bats from Alexandria homes and seal the house without wrecking the fabric of it.
Licensed in VA (#56104) and MD (#049372). Family-owned, 20+ years, answering 24 hours a day.
Why Alexandria Homes Get Wildlife Problems
We run calls across the whole city — Old Town, Del Ray, Rosemont, Parkfairfax, Seminary Hill, Potomac Yard and the Route 1 corridor south toward Huntington.
Alexandria’s problem is age. Old Town holds some of the earliest surviving housing in the region, much of it Federal and Georgian brick from the 1700s and 1800s: shared party walls, unlined masonry chimneys, deep cornices, dormers and flat or low-slope roofs behind parapets. Those buildings were never sealed to a modern standard and they never will be — the work is about closing specific gaps in original material without damaging it.
The early-20th-century streetcar neighborhoods are a second pattern entirely. Rosemont and Del Ray are smaller frame houses on tight lots, plenty of them from the 1910s–1930s, with wood soffits, crawl spaces, porch roofs and detached garages and sheds. Parkfairfax and the postwar garden apartments add long attached rooflines where one open soffit can feed an animal into several units.
Then add water. The Potomac waterfront, Four Mile Run, Cameron Run and Holmes Run give raccoons, opossums and snakes continuous green corridors straight into the middle of a dense city, and the tight lot spacing means a mature tree overhanging your roof is the norm rather than the exception.
The Animals We Remove in Alexandria
Raccoons — chimneys first, attics second
In Alexandria the chimney is the single most common way in. An unlined or uncapped masonry flue is, to a female raccoon, a hollow tree with a ledge above the damper — and in an old rowhouse that ledge is directly over your living room. We get the animal and any kits out by hand, then cap the flue properly, which is also what stops the next one. Raccoons can carry rabies, so this is not a job to handle yourself.
Eastern gray squirrels — the volume call
Squirrels need about an inch and a half. On a Del Ray or Rosemont bungalow they find it at the wood soffit return, the porch-roof-to-wall joint or a rotted fascia board; on a brick rowhouse they come in at the roof edge or through a gap behind a gutter. Once inside they chew, and chewed wiring in an insulated attic is a real fire risk. They also breed twice a year, so one female in February is five animals by March.
Bats — the specialist job, and common in the old city
Big brown bats need a quarter-inch gap, which an old chimney flashing, a slate or shake roof edge or a louvered attic vent supplies without difficulty. Bats cannot be trapped or poisoned. The only method that actually works is exclusion: one-way devices that let them out and not back in, then sealing every gap above a quarter inch.
Timing matters. From roughly May through August flightless pups are in the roost, and sealing then traps them inside your wall. During those months we fit devices and finish the seal once the young can fly.
Also common in Alexandria: opossums and skunks under porches, stoops and garden sheds · groundhogs burrowing beside retaining walls and alley garages · birds nesting in dryer and bath vents on townhouse rear walls · black rat snakes in basements and crawl spaces near the run corridors · and dead-animal recovery inside walls, which in this housing stock is a job of its own.
How an Alexandria Job Actually Runs
1. Inspection
We walk the roofline, soffits, vents, chimney and foundation, then go into the attic or crawl space to find entry points, nesting sites and damage. You get photos of what we find.
2. Humane Removal
Species-appropriate and humane: trapping and hand-removal for squirrels and raccoons including young, one-way exclusion for bats, targeted work for groundhogs, skunks and snakes.
3. Exclusion
Every entry point sealed in steel mesh, heavy-gauge metal flashing or hardware cloth. Not foam, not caulk — a squirrel chews through both in an afternoon.
Why Alexandria Homeowners Call Us Instead of a Pest Company
- 20+ years, family-owned — you deal with the people doing the work.
- Licensed in Virginia (#56104) and Maryland (#049372).
- Humane methods — we get the animal out without harming it, and we tell you straight what we found.
- 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 Alexandria.
- Full restoration in-house — attic cleanup, insulation, chimney caps, crawl space work.
Humane Solutions. Lasting Results.
Alexandria Wildlife Removal FAQs
How fast can you get to my Alexandria home?
Same day in most cases, and we answer 24 hours a day. An animal in a living space, a bat in a bedroom, or a rabies-vector animal gets priority.
Something is in my chimney. What happens now?
Do not light a fire and do not open the damper — that puts the animal in the room. We get it out from above, check for young, and then cap the flue. In Old Town the cap has to suit the building as well as the animal, so we match it to the chimney rather than screwing on whatever is in the van.
My house is in the historic district. Will you damage it?
No. Old brick, slate and original woodwork need a different approach from a modern soffit, and exterior changes in the historic districts may be subject to Board of Architectural Review rules. We work to the building — and we will flag anything likely to need review before we do it.
Can you just relocate the animal?
No — and it would not help if we did. An animal moved somewhere unfamiliar rarely survives, and another one moves into the empty space within days. Sealing the entry points is what actually solves it.
Do you treat insects or mice?
No. We are a wildlife company — squirrels, raccoons, bats, groundhogs, skunks, foxes, opossums, birds and snakes. For ants or roaches you want a pest control company.
Get Your Alexandria Home Sealed
Noise over the ceiling, a smell in a wall, or something moving in the chimney will not resolve on its own — and in an old house the repair bill grows faster than the problem.