Problems Caused by Groundhogs Digging

Need groundhog removal in your hometown? We service over 500 USA locations! Click here to hire us in your town and check prices - updated for year 2020.

When people have a groundhog infestation in their yard or garden, identifying the problem is usually quite straightforward as the number of holes and the piles of dirt next to them all signify an entrance point to a burrow. This arrival of new neighbors in your yard or garden is enough of a problem when you consider the food that they will often steal from a vegetable garden or from fruit plants, but an even more significant problem will come when the groundhogs start digging underneath your yard or garden. Here are some of the issues that they can cause.



Undermining Of Property Foundations

This is probably the most serious, and most costly issue to repair when it comes to the problems that can be caused by digging groundhogs, as if they do get beneath the property then they can cause the entire structure to become unstable. This is one reason why you should never allow signs of digging around your home to go uninvestigated, otherwise the entire property could be at risk.

Destabilization Of Sheds Or Outbuildings

Much like the issues caused by groundhogs digging beneath domestic properties, they can also dig beneath the ground on which outbuildings such as sheds, greenhouses and workshops are built. In these cases, the impact can be even more dramatic, as properties will usually sink slowly, while a tunnel beneath an outbuilding on a shallow foundation can see it tilting significantly or even falling into the earth on the side where the tunnels are most common.

Damage To Appearance Of Lawns And Gardens

A lovely flat green lawn may be the pride of the garden for many people, but for the groundhogs it is the moist soil beneath these lawns that is really attractive, as it is often a great source of insects and food for the groundhog. Their burrowing can also cause soil to fall in on top of the tunnels, leaving unsightly divets throughout the garden.

Undermining Of Fences

One of the key techniques that groundhogs will use to deal with fences is to tunnel beneath them, and if this does happen regularly, then it is not uncommon for the fence itself to become unstable because of the ground caving in beneath it. This is a good reason why fences in groundhog problem areas should be installed and embedded at least 12 inches into the ground, to stop animals from digging underneath.

Go back to the Groundhog Removal page.