Our critter expert Ron Krueger 9/272025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
As promised, Ron Krueger from A Plus Wildlife Control would
joining us today and Ron, welcome, it's been four months.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome again, Happy fall, Gary, Happy fall. Things changing, yes, thanks,
colors are changing, the temperature changing, and the behavior of
wildlife is changing too.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
And you know what that is the exact thought I
had this morning about six o'clock in the morning, heaving breakfast,
and I thought, you know what, I got to call
Ron see if he's available today. So thanks a bunch.
I mean, you know, we got all kinds of wildlife
and uh it's they too, are looking for a nice
place to winter over.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I guess they certainly are. They certainly are. We're finding
lots of different things happening right now. Yeah, with all
those changing temperatures seems to come real quick this year,
maybe even a little early with the drought. Animals are
changing their behaviors. And right now we're starting to get
the calls for the scratching and the ceilings, the scratching
in the walls, the running around and scampering above your head,

(01:16):
and all these are indications that something's.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Going on up there, something you don't want to ignore.
I will you know, I'm not studying wildlife like you are.
You're living it every day. But the one thing I've
noticed in my wife and I've been talking about we
have probably a forty foot pinoak in our backyard, and
about two weeks ago we started seeing the little clusters

(01:39):
of leaves and some pretty heavy squirrel activity underneath and
in that oak tree. And in the last week it's
gotten ferocious. I mean, I cut grass yesterday. I couldn't
believe all the clusters of leaves and little twigs that
were coming out of that oak tree.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
And sometimes that's just from fall, but a lot of
times the squirrels are actually making nests that go out
to the very ends of the more succulent ends of
the tree, and they nip them off with their sharp teeth. Yeah,
and usually they keep them in their teeth and carry
them down or take them to where they're going to nest.
Sometimes they lose their grip and that falls to the ground,
and you'll see a lot of nipped ends of trees

(02:22):
at the end of summer early early fall.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, there's a bunch of them. And I'm starting to
see even some acorn shells and things like that. So
I don't know what do we do as homeowners. I'm
not worried about the leaves. I just want to make
sure those animals and those squirrels, and you can tell
me about the other animals and what they're showing. I

(02:45):
want to make sure they stay outside.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, that's the important thing. We've talked many times over
the many years we've done this, and this is the time,
right now while the weather is still decent, because pretty
soon it's not going to be fit for man or
beast us and then it's kind of too late to
do anything because workers can't get up there to work
on slippery, you know, wet and frosty roofs with snow

(03:08):
and ice on it. So now's the time to look.
Go outside and walk around, takes ten minutes and just
get a good survey of your house. And what you're
looking for is gutters that are kind of tips funky.
Maybe you've got some soffets that are pushed up or
fall and or missing pieces. Those are all indications that
your house is having issues and open to wildlife. It's

(03:31):
like an open invitation to wildlife. Sometimes the wildlfe's actually
caused the damage. So it's time to basically get up there,
have an inspection done, find out if there's wildlife activity,
and if there is, you set traps or professional stet
traps to remove the animals and to make the proper
repairs to You want your house as solid, rock solid
as you possibly can get, because you can't stop wildlife

(03:54):
from being around, but you can, sure, in the heck's
try to stop them from getting there.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Sure, sure, I maybe you'll disagree with this statement, but
when you get wildlife in your home, maybe the easy
parts getting rid of it. But there's a mess up there,
there's a repair that needs to be made of the house.
I mean it's a three step process, it is.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
So the animal's gotta it's got to be identified, You
got you gotta find out. You got to monitor to see, hey,
is this an active area. Sometimes damage is old and
maybe not currently active. But if the homeowner's hearing things scratching, thumping,
bumping middle of the night, waking you up, something's happening.
So the animals. The process is you got to monitor,
get the animals trapped and removed, monitor to make sure

(04:39):
there's no further activity. And because you know, the last
thing you ever want to do is find a hole
or an opening and just willing nilly go up and
just seal it, right, because if you just seal it,
open soft it or a bad part of the roof
and fix it, and you're not sure if there's something
living in there, really only bad things can occur after that.
You're potent actually locked an animal in your attic. That's

(05:02):
not a good thing.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Ron When they're in the attic and you hear them moving,
regardless of what it is. You hear a movie, are
they They're they're coming and going right, So, I mean
there should be a lot of activity.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, animals, don't you just store a lot of food
in your in your attic.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Now.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
The only ones that would do that is something like
the red squirrel, the pine squirrel. They're known to store
I've been in attics where they've the bays of the
insulation area is just packed full of walnuts and stuff
like that. But they're one of the few that do that.
Everything else they come and go a lot, and so. Yeah,
so they're using the house as a hardbridge to keep
out of the weather, and they got that nice fluffy

(05:40):
insulation up there. While they're up there, you know, they're
biological forces will effect up there too. They're they're defecating
and urinating and doing things and also chewing and gnawing
on things. We just helped the lady up here in
the Akron area that she had a ton of squirrels,
had them for a long time getting through a ridge.
Believe it or not, the ridgiment had an open end

(06:03):
and we got in there. The squirrel droppings were just
enormous in the ceiling of this house, and we got
them out. She was also complaining that her lights and
fixtures stopped working, and she got electrician and boy, what
happened was from a simple repair, it turned into something
major where they had to start cutting into open ceilings

(06:24):
because the squirrels got into the inaccessible areas and chewed
all the romans wiring potential fire hazard. So they got
it fixed in time without an issue.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
And I'm sure you've seen it where they've chewed through
plastic piping water pipe.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
I had a customer where every time on the second
floor they would run the sink or flush a toilet,
it would flood downstairs. And what happened was is they
chewed a hole in the plastic PBC plastic pipe venting.
It was actually the vent stack but it was in
where the water went when they flushed, and it made

(06:59):
a mess and they had to do some searching to
find it. They had to cut open a wall to
locate that, and they did. And yeah, so squirrels were
the main culprit for that. I've seen that quite a
few times.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
To be honest with you, is squirrel Is that the
number one animal? I mean, I know we'd need to
be concerned about all, but you run into squirrels more
than other animals this time of year.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
For roofs and addics, we typically get squirrels and raccoons.
Raccoons they're kind of like you know, the behemoths. They
get up there. If they don't have a hole and
they want in, they'll actually make one. And actually squirrels
will do that too. They'll chew anow on on punky
and old wood. The raccoons will go up to like
a dormer. The things to look at if you've got
a dormer in your house, where you got that softet

(07:42):
roof connection, that pinch point up there, It is the
weakest spot on a house for animal entry. I don't
care what it is. It could be mice, bats, squirrels, raccoons,
they all will utilize that gap in that spot because
the soappets are usually weakest there. Know, a raccoon will
literally get up there, just push they're strong, or pull

(08:04):
it out all together, right, And once they're in that soppet,
they have access to here. And that's so yeah, and
that's that's what we always look There's usually evidence. Do
you see muddy pawp prints going up and down your
you know there's there mud on your down spot? You know,
those are things we look for during an inspection.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
So yeah, and so really what a homeowner can do
two things that come to mind. Number one is what
you said, take that walk around the house and really
pay attention to what's going on, even if you're on
the ground with a pair of binoculars. I guess if
you see squirrels hanging out around your ridge vent, you
definitely want to use your binoculars and see if there's

(08:46):
any damage. And I guess one of the biggest things
is if you hear, don't ignore it. It's not going
to go well.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Exactly usually what we hear this time of year, and
the only thing it could be too this time of years,
mighty mice are rolling in the houses left and right.
So we go into an inspection, we're hearing scratching, or
they're hearing scratching, they're hearing some scampering, and sometimes we
get there it's not maybe a wildlife issue, but we determine, hey,

(09:15):
they got a mouse issue, and so it could be everything.
So take the time now to seal your house, cocking, ceiling,
replacing wood, doing anything you can while the weather is
good will save you a lot of problems in the
winter time.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Ron's businesses A plus wildlife control. You're an a ACRON
Cleveland area, and I know there's people listening, says, oh, mice, squirrels.
I can trap those. I'm not here just to sell
RON services. There's a reason. I mean, you know so
much about wildlife and behaviors. Do you see home owners

(09:56):
that have tried to resolve it and get themselves a
little bit over their head.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well of all types. Yes, and we're okay with that
to some extent.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Sure to do it.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
But being f on a thirty foot ladder or forty
foot ladder or twenty five foot ladder trying to catch
you know, squirrels on a gutter or or trying to
get a raccoon out. You know, you get you get
a twenty pound raccoon in a cage up on your
roof and you're trying to pull it off the roof
and it's banging across, you know, back and forth. You
can lose your balance. It's not safe. So you know,

(10:31):
you got to have somebody who can get up on
a roof work the areas. You know, you can always
set a trap on the ground, but you're never knowing
if you're going to get the right raccoon or the
right squirrel. You're just catching things. You want to solve
the issue, not to catch all the wildlife. But yeah,
it's it's you know, it's dangerous. You get them the attic,
you find a lot of mess. Raccoons will leave a
horrible mess in an attic that usually needs professional clean out.

(10:55):
Their feces can be what's a toxic but it has
zoonotic disease, is shoes with it that you don't want
to mess with, you don't, you know, And so yeah,
and and so those are the things that you just
kind of go up and you just got to say, yep,
now beyond our skill set and it's time to call somebody.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
How about homeowner's insurance. We just so, and I just
reviewed all ours and really went through it, and I
asked that particular question quite honestly, because it's always there's
a fear there with animals getting into the attic and expense.
And a lot of companies have different writers and I
guess some cover, some don't correct.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, they do. You got to read through it. Know
what you're getting into. The long ten fifteen, twenty years ago,
many times damage from wildlife issues usually were covered no
one more. Now they're not, and they kind of put
in the language legally is you know that they're going
to exclude all the damage caused by vermin, which basically
is a catch off phrase for anything that causes damage.

(11:55):
It's an animal is going to be a no go
and you're going to be responsible for it. So that's
why the important thing is to do the maintenance. It's
a lot less and expensive than actually making repairs in
the future. You know, an attic clean out can to
fix an addic insulation and damage and contaminated and all
that stuff could be you know, five ten thousand dollars. Sure,

(12:17):
that's a lot of work. You know, where maybe three
hundred dollars repair on a gutter right with to solve
that issue.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, I kind of close our eyes to some of
that maintenance issues. Ron up. Thanks so much for joining
us on real short notice. We'll try to have you
on again before the end of the year. We always
get you on in the winter when they all start
waking up and dog gone it. I'm sure you've saved
a lot of folks of money. I had a caller
today say she reached out and you gave her some
great information and I appreciate that too. She surely did

(12:49):
no problem.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Happy to help anytime. Gary, have a great day.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
You do the same. Thank you, my friend, Take care,
bye bye. It's an A plus wildlife control out of
the Cleveland Acron area. Great company, and man does he
know what he's talking about. All right, let's take it rake.
We'll come back get some questions answered. You're at home
with Gary Sullivan.

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