You turn on the porch light and spot a gray animal moving near the trash cans. It has a pointed face, dark eyes, and a long bare tail. Seeing an opossum on your property can be surprising, especially when it shows up close to the house.
Most sightings don’t call for immediate opossum removal. Opossums often move through Missouri neighborhoods at night while looking for food, water, or shelter. If the animal keeps walking and has a clear route out of the yard, giving it space is usually the right response.
Pay closer attention when the same animal comes back several nights in a row, slips beneath a deck, enters a garage, or disappears through an opening in the house. Those details help you decide whether you’re seeing a passing animal or dealing with a recurring wildlife problem.
What to Do When You See an Opossum on Your Property
If you’re wondering what to do if you see an opossum, start by keeping some distance. Bring pets indoors, keep children away, and don’t walk toward the animal for a closer look.
Watch where it goes instead. An opossum in the yard that crosses the lawn and continues through the property may never return. One that repeatedly visits the same part of a porch, squeezes beneath a structure, or circles the house each night gives you more reason to investigate.
Match Your Response to What You See
| What You Notice | What It Could Mean | What to Do |
| One opossum crossing the yard | It may simply be passing through | Give it room and let it leave |
| An opossum in the backyard near trash | Food may be drawing it back | Secure garbage and remove accessible food |
| An opossum under a deck or porch | The space may be providing shelter | Watch the area and look for regular activity |
| Scratching or movement overhead | An opossum or other wildlife may be in the attic | Arrange a professional inspection |
| An opossum in the garage | It may have wandered inside through an open door | Keep people and pets away and provide an exit when practical |
| An injured animal or unusual movement | The animal may need assessment | Contact an appropriate wildlife authority or rehabilitator |
Location and frequency tell you more than a single sighting. An animal moving through an open yard and one repeatedly entering the same sheltered space shouldn’t be handled the same way.
What Attracts Opossums to Homes and Yards
Anyone trying to figure out what attracts opossums should start with food. Pet bowls left outdoors, unsecured garbage, fallen fruit, compost, spilled birdseed, and scraps around a grill can all turn a yard into an easy feeding stop.
The Missouri Department of Conservation identifies the opossum as Missouri’s only marsupial and describes it as an opportunistic omnivore. That flexible diet helps explain why a Missouri opossum can adapt to wooded areas, farmland, suburbs, and neighborhoods.
Common Food Sources Around a Home
| Attraction | Why It Matters | Better Property Habit |
| Pet food outdoors | Offers a dependable meal | Bring bowls inside after feeding |
| Loose trash or open lids | Makes food scraps easy to reach | Use tightly closing containers |
| Fallen fruit | Leaves food directly on the ground | Pick it up regularly |
| Birdseed | Seed can collect beneath feeders | Clean the ground below feeders |
| Open compost | Food scraps may attract scavengers | Keep compost contained |
| Grill residue | Grease and scraps can remain overnight | Clean the grill and surrounding area |
Shelter can keep an opossum around the house even after the easiest food disappears. Spaces beneath decks, porches, sheds, and crawl spaces give wildlife cover from weather and human activity.
An opossum near the house may also find damaged exterior materials. Loose fascia, damaged soffits, open vents, and gaps around construction details can become opossum entry points or provide access for other nuisance wildlife.
What Opossum Behavior Can Tell You
Opossums are mainly active at night, so many homeowners first notice them on a doorbell camera or under a porch light. Seeing one during daylight doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Wildlife may move during the day when food is available, when its resting place has been disturbed, or when it’s caring for young.
Their defensive behavior can look more dramatic than it really is. A frightened opossum may hiss or bare its teeth, according to the Animal Diversity Web. Sometimes, they also become stiff and unresponsive. The behavior commonly called “playing dead” happens under severe stress and isn’t a deliberate attempt to fool a person or predator.
Useful Opossum Facts
| Fact | Detail |
| Teeth | 50 |
| Pregnancy length | About 12 to 13 days |
| Main activity period | Mostly nighttime |
| Mammal type | Marsupial |
| Common setting | Wooded areas, farms, suburbs, and urban edges |
Are Opossums Dangerous?
Homeowners searching “are opossums dangerous” often find conflicting answers. But, generally, they’re not. Opossums tend to avoid people, but they’re still wild animals. Any animal that’s cornered, grabbed, or chased by a pet can bite or scratch.
Like other wild animals, opossums can also carry diseases. According to the UC IPM, they can be carriers of spottedt fever, leptospirosis, tularemia, coccidiosis, tuberculosis, trichomoniasis, toxoplasmosis, and Chagas disease. It’s also possible for them to be infested with fleas, lice, mites, and ticks.
The practical response is simple: don’t touch the animal, don’t encourage children to approach it, and bring pets away from the area. A person who is bitten or scratched by a wild mammal should contact a healthcare provider or public health agency. Pet contact should be discussed with a veterinarian.
How to Keep Opossums Away From Your Property
Homeowners often look for sprays, lights, or an opossum deterrent first. Those measures don’t correct the reason an animal keeps returning if food or shelter is still available.
To keep opossums away, begin with the basics. Bring pet food indoors, secure garbage, pick up fallen fruit, and clean food residue around grills and outdoor eating areas. If bird feeders leave piles of seed underneath, clear the ground regularly.
Check Decks, Porches, and Exterior Openings
Inspect the property during daylight. Look along porches, decks, sheds, crawl-space openings, vents, soffits, and fascia for disturbed soil, damaged screening, loose materials, or visible gaps.
An opossum under a porch may simply be using a temporary resting place, but repeated activity can point to a denning area. An opossum under a deck should be handled with the same caution. Avoid crawling underneath the structure or reaching into a dark opening to see whether an animal is present.
Don’t Seal an Opening While It Is Active
Finding a hole in a structure doesn’t mean it should be closed immediately. If an opossum in the attic or another animal is still using the space, sealing the opening can trap wildlife inside.
Confirm whether the area is occupied before permanent repair begins. When removal is needed, the animal should be addressed first. Wildlife exclusion comes afterward so the entry point doesn’t remain available.
When Opossum Removal and Wildlife Exclusion Make Sense
Professional opossum control becomes more relevant when the animal is no longer just walking through the yard. Repeated activity below a porch, noises inside an attic, structural entry, or evidence of opossum damage all justify a closer inspection.
A good wildlife inspection should answer more than where the animal happens to be at that moment. The technician needs to determine how the animal is getting in, whether it’s regularly using the structure, and what needs to change once it’s removed.
Trapping and Exclusion Solve Different Problems
An opossum trap can address an animal that needs to be removed, but trapping alone doesn’t close the route it used. The same applies to broader wildlife removal. Removing the current animal solves only the immediate problem when an opening in the structure remains.
Exclusion deals with the second half of the issue. Depending on the property, that work may involve soffits, fascia, vents, chimney openings, or other structural gaps. Correcting the access point reduces the chance that another animal will use the same route.
That’s especially relevant with nuisance wildlife around older homes, attached garages, rooflines, and covered porches where access points are difficult to see from the ground.
Making the Right Opossum Control Choice for Your Missouri Home
An opossum on your property may need nothing more than an open route out of the yard. Repeated visits, shelter beneath a structure, or activity inside the home call for more attention. Food, shelter, and structural access usually provide the best clues about why the animal keeps coming back.
Professional help becomes useful when the issue involves a building because opossum removal and exclusion are separate parts of the job. Holper’s Pest & Animal Solutions can inspect the property, identify likely entry points, determine whether trapping is appropriate, and recommend repairs after the animal is gone.
For homeowners looking for opossum removal in St. Louis, Springfield and surrounding Missouri communities, contact Holper’s to schedule a professional inspection.
