Trusted Protection Against Pest

Catch and Release

Possums are protected in NSW and catching possums without a licence is illegal in NSW. Local Pest Control Illawarra is licenced to offer the service of removing a possum or possums from your home. A relocated possum will not survive in a new territory. So you need to rehouse them nearby, away from your roof, ideally in a tree in your garden. It is illegal to relocate or to kill a possum.

Once the possum is safely removed from your home, remember to block off the access points into your roof and have any overhanging branches trimmed away from your house.

You can also install a nesting box in a tree. You could make it yourself out of timber or purchase from a produce or hardware store or LPCI could install it for you.

Spider treatments

Ring Tail Possum:

The Eastern Ringtail are well known to many Illawarra residents. Together with the Common Brushtail Possum, it has adapted well to living in close association with humans and is often seen in suburban gardens at night.

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Redback spider

Identification

The Eastern Ringtail Possum is a size of a cat, they are grey with white patches behind the eyes and on the belly, and orange-brown tinges on the tail and limbs. Its long tail has a white tip and it uses it as a fifth limb to climb and jump between connecting branches, fences and powerlines. The structure of its forefeet, with a gap between the second and third fingers, allows the possum to hold onto branches securely.

They have three pairs of upper incisors, one pair of lower incisors. Their head is rounded with slightly bulging eyes. Their ears are rounded with a white patch behind their ear.

The colour can be variable, grey to near-black back, sometimes tinged red-orange, white to red-orange below, red-orange legs.

The tail has a white tip, naked underside, furred above. Carried in a coil when not used.

Habitat

Almost exclusively tree-dwelling, the Eastern Ringtail Possum lives in forests, woodlands, rainforests, dense scrub and suburban gardens. During the day the Eastern Ringtail Possum sleeps in its nest made from grass and shredded bark. It builds the nest in a tree hole, tree fork or dense vegetation.
Huntsman spider
White tip spider

Distribution

The Eastern Ringtail Possum is found pretty much all over Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Brushtail Possum

Brushtail possums are nocturnal animals, coming out after dark to feed on flowers, fruit, buds and leaves of native plants. Mistletoe, one of their snacks, is a parasite that can kill gum trees, the common brushtail possum helps to protect gum trees by controlling the mistletoe. Insects, eggs and meat may also be eaten infrequently. In suburban areas the species may become an opportunistic feeder eating almost anything that it can find. They spend their days in a den in a hollow dead branch, tree trunk, fallen log or even on the ground.

Communication is by sound and scent. Deep guttural coughs and sharp hisses are frequent forms of communication, particularly in the breeding season. You may sometimes hear this sound as they travel across your roof at night when they move between feeding areas.

The common brushtail possum breeds throughout the year, with the majority of births between March and November. Females reach sexual maturity of approximately one year and males in their second year. Adult female possums have a large, forward-facing pouch.

A single furless young is born after a 17.5-day gestation, weighing 200 mg and measuring approximately 15 mm. The young makes it way from the birth canal to the large forward-facing pouch where it will attach itself and suckle from one of two teats. It makes its first pouch exit at around 121 days and permanently leaves the pouch at around 150 days.

Wolf spider
White tip spider

Identification

The common brushtail possum is the most familiar and abundant of the Australian possums. It is a large possum with a bushy tail and pointy ears. Usually silvery grey in

colour with a black band across the snout, they have a white to brownish-yellow belly. Adults can weigh up to 4 kg. The total length from head and body is between 35 and 55 cm, tail length is approximately 25-40 cm.

Habitat

Common brushtail possums are found in different types of habitats. They have adapted well to living with humans and are commonly seen in urban areas, backyards in the Illawarra, campgrounds and they seek shelter in the ceilings of your home.
Wolf spider

Distribution

They live in wooded areas along Australia's east coast, eastern South Australia and southwest Western Australia.

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