Illinois wildlife control: Removal & Exclusion for Homeowners

What to look for

The rulebook is IDNR's. Anyone charging a fee must hold a Class A Nuisance wildlife control Permit, earned by exam under 17 Ill. Adm. Code 525. Under those rules a trapped striped skunk must be euthanized, a trapped raccoon must be euthanized or released on the same property, and bats may not be shot, trapped, transported or held except in a living-quarters situation. Illinois lies west of the USDA raccoon rabies bait zone that ends in Alabama, and in the Midwest the CDC's rabies picture is built on skunks, which is why the skunk rule is the strictest of the three. Illinois wildlife problems are cold-climate problems in a wet state with a strict rulebook. The cold sets the calendar: when nights head toward the 17F median low across the state's cities, raccoons move into attics and chimneys, striped skunks dig under porches and stoops, squirrels chew into soffits, and opossums take crawlspaces and garages. They stay until spring, and by March the dens hold litters. The wet makes the doors. About 38 inches of rain a year and humidity near 70% keep fascia, soffit returns and the bottom edge of roof sheathing damp for months, and a raccoon pulls damp wood apart with its hands. Median home values around $260,000 across the state's cities sit on a lot of older housing where the soffits were never screened, the chimneys were never capped, and the porch has a hollow underneath.

• 1Heavy footsteps overhead after dark from October on, and whimpering from the attic or chimney in March.
• 2A skunk smell that hangs around a porch, stoop or garage slab on cold, still nights.
• 3A soffit return that has pulled loose at the corner, dark and soft from 70% humidity.
• 4Fast scratching in the eaves at first light, the squirrel schedule.
• 5Bats leaving a soffit or louver at dusk in July, with droppings on the siding below.
• 6A torn vent screen on a crawlspace or a gap under a garage door with hair caught in it, the opossum's route.
• 7A pile of droppings in one attic corner, the raccoon latrine.
• 8Gnawed wiring or a chewed plumbing vent boot in an older attic.

Treatment options and typical costs

Prices are typical published ranges. Ask what’s included before you compare quotes.

What the Illinois Class A permit rules mean for the animal in your house.

A permit holder answers in a sentence. When a provider quotes you, ask which rule applies to your animal and how the price reflects it. Rule three: bats may not be shot, trapped, transported or held except in a living-quarters situation, so a colony in a soffit is excluded with one-way devices and never handled, and the only bat a provider or homeowner may capture is the one flying around a bedroom. That means the raccoon from your attic may be let go in your own yard, which sounds pointless until you understand that the point of the job is the sealed roofline, not the removal; a raccoon released at the foot of a screened soffit goes elsewhere. Rule two: a trapped raccoon must be euthanized or released on the same property. There is no same-property release and no relocation, because the skunk is the Midwest's rabies-variant animal and the CDC finds more than 20% of skunks that expose a person or pet test positive. Rule one: a trapped striped skunk must be euthanized. Illinois is unusual in that the fate of the animal is written into the rules a Class A Nuisance wildlife control Permit holder is tested on, and reading those three rules tells you most of what to expect from a job in Chicago, Springfield or anywhere in between.

wildlife activity by season.

Scheduling before the busy stretch, rather than after it, tends to mean faster service and a more accurate quote, and a local provider can point out the conditions that matter most in Illinois. In Illinois, checking the foundation, gaps around doors and windows, and any moisture or clutter near the structure usually turns up the conditions that are letting them in. The most useful first step in Illinois is to note where you have seen wildlife and when they appear, because that timeline is what lets a provider focus on the right area instead of treating the whole property.

Why an Illinois bat in the bedroom is handled differently from a bat in the soffit.

The CDC counts about 100,000 Americans a year getting post-exposure treatment; a tested bat is how you avoid being one of them. Then the wildlife call, because a bat in a bedroom came from a colony above it, and the soffit exclusion happens in the fall window. So the useful sequence is: close the door on the bat, call the local health department that morning, and contain the bat only if it can be done without bare-hand contact, using a container and a piece of cardboard, or leave that to the provider. The health department can test the bat and, if it is negative, spare the sleeper the vaccine series; if the bat is gone, the vaccine is the default. Inside living quarters, the state allows capture, and the reason is that a bat in a room where someone was sleeping is treated as a possible rabies exposure, since a bat's bite can go unnoticed and bats are about 35% of rabid animals found nationally. Outside living quarters, a bat is off limits: it cannot be trapped, held or moved, so a soffit colony is excluded with one-way devices during the legal window and the bats are never touched. Understanding it tells a homeowner in Naperville or Peoria exactly what to do on the morning they find a bat on the curtain. Illinois' bat rule has an exception for living quarters, and that exception exists because of rabies.

A month-by-month wildlife timeline for Illinois homes.

A homeowner who does the carpentry in July and caps the flues in September has closed the doors before the animals come looking for them. October through December: the fall move-in, as raccoons take flues, squirrels chew into damp soffits and skunks dig under stoops from Waukegan to Decatur. September and early October: bat exclusions, the last comfortable stretch for chimney caps and porch skirting. June through August: 84F days, big brown bat colonies in soffits and louvers, and the maternity season, when exclusion waits; this is the window for replacing the fascia and soffit returns that 70% humidity rotted over the winter. March through May: raccoon kits on chimney smoke shelves and in attics, the first squirrel litter, and one-way doors set aside so mothers are not separated from young; hand removals and same-property releases are the norm. Ladder work is slow but possible. January and February: raccoons and squirrels are settled in attics and flues against 17F nights, skunks are under porches, and skunk mating odor peaks. Illinois runs a cold-climate wildlife calendar with a wet spring and a strict rulebook, and each stretch of it changes what a Class A permit holder can do.

What water does to Illinois soffits, and why the quote has carpentry in it.

On older housing near the state's $260,000 median value, soffits that were never screened when the house was built are the largest line on many quotes and the first thing a low bid leaves out. Ask each provider how many feet of fascia and soffit are being replaced and compare that number rather than the total. When two quotes differ, the difference is usually here: one replaces the rotted sections and the other screens over them. So a permit holder's inspection should list not only the openings but the sections of wood that have to be replaced before hardware cloth can be fastened to anything solid, because mesh screwed into rot fails by the next spring thaw. A raccoon puts its hands on a soft soffit return and it comes apart; a squirrel chews the softened edge in one night; a bat finds the quarter-inch gap where a fascia board has bowed. About 38 inches of rain a year and humidity near 70% keep fascia boards, soffit returns and the lower edge of roof sheathing damp for most of the year, and in a 17F winter that damp wood freezes and shrinks and then thaws and swells, working every joint loose. An Illinois wildlife quote from a house in Elgin or Rockford usually has a carpentry line on it, and the reason is that the entries were made by water before the animal arrived.

Two-flats, landlords and who hires the permit holder in Illinois.

Keep the permit holder's report; it records species, openings, dates and disposition for both sides. A bat in a tenant's bedroom is the living-quarters case, and the health department gets that call first from whoever is in the room. The state's rules add one thing for landlords to explain to tenants: the raccoon may be released on the same property, in the yard, and that is not the provider being lazy, it is the rule, and the sealed roofline is the fix. For owners of several buildings, one August round of fascia replacement, soffit screening and flue caps across all of them is cheaper than fall emergency calls one building at a time. A tenant should report the problem in writing with the date and the sound, since heavy steps at dusk mean raccoon and scratching at dawn means squirrel, and the date establishes how long the owner has known. Under most leases the owner pays for the removal and the repair, because an unscreened soffit, an uncapped flue or a hollow porch is a condition of the building, and because the Class A permit holder is hired by whoever controls the property. Illinois' cities, and Chicago in particular, are full of two-flats and three-flats, and a raccoon in the attic of one belongs to the owner, not to the tenant on the top floor who hears it.

Reading two Illinois wildlife quotes against the rulebook.

Show the cheaper bid to its author and ask what it leaves out; in Illinois it is usually the carpentry and the caps, and once they are added the gap mostly closes. The bid that answers all seven is usually the better buy at a higher number. Seventh, the paperwork: what does the provider do in writing if the noise returns in 30 or 60 days? Sixth, the attic: if cleanup is proposed, what square footage and where are the photos? Fifth, the flues: is every one capped, as its own line? Fourth, the wood: how many feet of rotted fascia and soffit come out before the mesh goes on? Third, the visits: how many trap checks are included and on what interval? Code 525. Adm. A quote that promises relocation is a quote from someone who has not read 17 Ill. Second, the animal: for a skunk, does the quote say euthanasia, as the rule requires; for a raccoon, does it say euthanasia or same-property release; for bats, does it say exclusion only, with no trapping? First, the permit: does each provider hold a Class A Nuisance wildlife control Permit, and will they give you the number? Two quotes for the same Joliet attic can be far apart and both be honest, and in Illinois the rulebook gives you a checklist to compare them against.

Simple ways to keep wildlife away

• Replace rotted fascia and soffit returns in August, since 70% humidity keeps them soft the rest of the year.
• Cap every chimney flue; uncapped flues on older Illinois housing are the most common raccoon nursery.
• Screen soffit returns, gable louvers and crawlspace vents with quarter-inch galvanized hardware cloth.
• Skirt porches and stoops with mesh buried a foot down and bent outward, before the ground freezes.
• Keep oak and maple limbs eight feet off the roof and away from the garage.
• Store garbage inside a garage or in latched cans from September through November.
• Watch the soffit at dusk in June; the spot bats leave from is the gap to exclude in the fall window.
• Walk the roofline after the first hard frost, since new gaps open as wet wood freezes and shrinks.

Questions people ask

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