How to Get a Fox Out From Under a Shed, Deck, Porch, or House

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In short, you need to either trap and relocate the fox ten miles from your house, or you need to build an exclusion barrier - install a steel screen - around the perimeter of the structure so that the animals can't get under. Or better yet, you can do both.



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What To Do If You Have A Fox Living Under Your Porch
If there is a fox living under your porch or under your deck or garden shed, you have two choices: You can either leave it there or have it removed. Some people are advocates of leaving it there because most likely it is a mother fox with young ones. Once they are raised, the entire family will sometimes leave, which is in most cases only a matter of a few months. Others feel that a fox represents the danger of biting people and want it removed from their property. Both sides have a point. However, if you have children, or pets, the safety of those people or animals entrusted into your care must take precedence.

If You Decide To Let The Fox Remain
Once you have taken that stance, you will be committed to it until the end of summer, when the pups are old enough to move out with their mother. You may have to completely forego the convenience of your porch during that time. This is because the fox, protecting her young, will not tolerate you sitting so close to them and may decide to attack. The other reason would be because foxes urinate and defecate near their living places. This has a very strong and unpleasant odor; especially in the hot summer months, this could be repulsive. If you have a pet, there is a big chance of it getting bitten since most animals are very territorial.

What Are The Consequences Of A Fox Living Under Your Porch or Shed?
Beside the inconvenience of having to be very careful because there is a wild animal living so close, and the smells emanating from under the house; there is the absolute nuisance of fleas having now a wider range of hosts to feed on. If you have a pet, their flea population may increase exponentially. You may be the other source of their blood meal. You may also be the recipient of any diseases the fleas or the foxes carry and transmit. The foxes may carry rabies, leptospirosis, different types of mange and distemper. This can easily be transmitted through the fleas. In the least, you must have your pets up to date on their vaccinations. You may also have to increase the number of times you bathe them and vacuum the carpets more often to keep the flea population under control. Friends and other visitors may be hesitant to stop by while you have wildlife under your porch.

If You Decide You Want To Be Rid Of The Fox
The best way to remove the fox is to trap it in a live trap and relocate the animal. You will have to be careful of where you decide to take the fox because you’ll want to make sure it’s legal to and that it’s new home will be in an area that is safe for the animal. The most common and popular bait is wet cat food. You will need to make sure that the fox doesn’t have babies under the area as well because if she does these will have to be safely removed. It is not recommended to poison or use a lethal trap on the animal because they are protected in many areas.

The safest and best way to remove a wild animal from your residence is through the services of the professional animal control personnel. These are people trained in how to remove wild animals and how to relocate them safely and successfully to another, more suitable, area. Their services go beyond just the safe removal of the critters. They will deodorize the area where the fox, or foxes, were living by clearing out the waste and dirt so that the pungent odor will be gone with it and then treat the area to neutralize any remaining odor.

The animal control agents will trap the fox and her babies, if she has young ones there, and relocate them to a safe place, conducive to the survival of this animal. This will be planned out and prepared for even before they set the traps out so that the fox will not be relocated to an area already overpopulated with foxes or other wildlife which may be dangerous for the young foxes. The traps will not hurt either the mother fox or the young foxes. It will only contain them until they are released into their new home. Read the full guide Ways to Get Rid of Foxes.



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Best Ways to Remove a Fox From Under a Shed or Porch

Foxes often make up dens in the spaces underneath sheds and porches, and this can be frustrating for the homeowner. Foxes are actually very destructive forces, tearing open garbage bags and leaving their contents strewn across the lawn, as well as knocking over garbage cans to get to the tasty leftovers inside. They’ll break into chicken coops to tear at vulnerable chickens and their eggs. Rabbits that are not safely and securely in hutches will become a target, and even small cats and dogs can become dinner if they are not kept out of harm’s way. For such a cute animal (most of the time), the fox can be a really brutal killer.



Along with the disease risks associated with foxes, the fact that they can be dangerous creatures to pets and small children will definitely encourage you wanting to move them along. Luckily, you have a few options.

Let’s get things out the way in terms of repellents. They rarely work. As soon as you stop using them, the foxes will come back. Some of them can be very expensive for very little results. They can work, but if they really did work as effectively as they say on the packet, people like me would be out of a job. Clearly, I’m not.

Foxes are more active during the day now. They know that they can find more food during the day. They are getting braver around humans, so being out in the day isn’t such a big deal anymore. That means that lights and sounds — two things that would normally encourage human-shy creatures to flee — will have very little effect. Radios and lights are probably going to have no effect, although a sensor light in the back garden can certainly help a little. It will also deter burglars so you’re technically killing two birds with the proverbial one stone.

It’s not really a good idea to just seal up the area, putting up a mesh wire fence around the structure, if you’re not sure whether or not there are other foxes or animals still hanging out down there. You may need to get on your hands and knees and have a good look around with a flashlight. Your nose will help too, although we do recommend that wear some sort of breathing mask to ensure you're not inhaling any nasty disease spores.

Only when you are sure that all foxes or nuisance wildlife has been evicted can you then go ahead and seal up the area, and you will need to choose materials that are durable and strong enough to come up against a wild number of wild critters. If you do not do this, it will only be a matter of time before the wildlife comes back. Next time, it might not be a fox. It might be a raccoon, or perhaps rats, or maybe even a skunk?

Go back to the Fox Removal page.