With civet cats being well known for raiding trash cans and trying to get access to any food that they are able to smell, we have seen a stark increase in the number of people reaching out and asking for advice on how to get rid of a civet cat recently.
Although civet cats are native to Europe, Africa, and Asia, we have seen a spike in the number of people from North America asking about how to get rid of a civet cat too.
We are not sure if this is due to people importing civet cats as pets and then releasing them or if it is due to people mistaking the ringtail cat for a civet cat.
Either way. the methods that we will be covering in this article should be able to get rid of a civet cat or a ringtail cat without issue and prevent your trash cans from being raided while you sleep.
Depending on your situation, you may be able to use all of these methods but most of the time, any of the methods that we will be covered should be enough to get rid of a civet cat.
All of the methods that we will be covering are just about as equal to each other in their effectiveness too making it pretty simple to scare civet cats away from your property too.
How To Get Rid Of A Civet Cat!
The easiest ways to get rid of a civet cat is to use strong scents such as lavender, peppermint, and lemon as they tend to hate those smells.
If you have a dog, letting it pee in your yard or garden works in a similar way and can discourage a civet cat from visiting you. Some people also install motion detector based lights to scare civet cats off their property too but this does tend to be more expensive.
In some very rare situations, you may have to resort to getting animal control involved in getting rid of the civet cat that keeps on coming to your property.
Depending on where you live, this may cost you for the call out but some towns and cities will offer the service for free, especially in Southern Europe where civet cats have been causing a number of problems recently.
We have also noticed some people reaching out about how they are able to scare a civet cat away from their property the first time they get a visit from a civet.
Sometimes a civet cat may only be passing through and not return to your property, especially if it is not able to find any food so wait a week or so to be sure that the cat is coming back on a regular basis.
Try Using Strong Scents!
Just like normal cats, civet cats have a strong sense of smell and you can often discourage a civet cat from coming to your property by using this to your advantage.
Lavender, peppermint, and lemon tend to be the more effective scents that will deter a civet cat from visiting you but there are some less common scents that you can use too.
Thankfully, the more effective scents tend to be cheap and you can get lavender and lemon for less than $10 in most situations to try them out to see if they are able to keep the civet cat away from your property.
If you do keep a garden, be sure to get an actual diffuser to spread the scent rather than pouring it on the soil as this may cause problems with some plants.
Depending on your situation, you will often be able to just pour some of the scented oils into a glass of water and leave a few glasses with the water and oil in them around your property to spread the scent.
Although it may take a few weeks to break the habit of the civet cat coming to your property, it can work and does have a high success rate.
How Do I Scare Away A Civet Cat Using Light?
Due to civet cats being nocturnal, they have evolved to have a huge sensitivity to light, especially bright light flashing out of nowhere when they least expect it.
Some people take advantage of this to scare civet cats off their property with motion sensors and lights with this having one of the highest success rates for keeping civet cats off your property.
Over the last few years, the prices of decent, outdoor motion sensor lights has fallen drastically and you can often get a great set for between $30 and $40.
You can get more advanced sets that cost more than this but if you are only getting the lights to scare civet cats off your property then keeping the set as cheap as possible is probably the best option to take.
These lights are easy to install and set up allowing anyone, even if you have no experience with fitting lights to get the system set up and working within around half an hour.
This helps to keep your costs as low as possible as some of the more expensive light systems that are designed for home security may need a professional to fit them for you pumping your overall costs up.
Remove All Rubbish From Easily Accessed Areas!
Civet cats usually come to your property as they are able to smell food in your trash cans. Removing these trash cans from an area where a visiting civets cat can get easy access to them can be enough to discourage them from returning to your property with ease.
Although this may sound very basic, the number of people that we have seen making this mistake time and time again giving a civet cat that visits their property quick and easy access to discarded food is surprisingly high.
This can drastically increase the chances of a civet cat paying you a visit more often as it will work out that you offer it an easy meal.
The more often the civet cat visits your property and gets an easy meal, the more the habit will build up for it to keep coming to you to get an easy meal and the longer it will take to discourage the behavior.
This is why locking your trash cans away in a garage or a easy to install bin shed can prevent the civet cats from getting their easy meal and prevent them from coming back to your property.
Let Your Dog Mark Its Terratory!
Civet cats have evolved in areas where they have plenty of natural predators so the majority of civet cats will not risk an encounter with a larger animal if possible.
This is why letting your dog pee in your garden or yard can sometimes be enough to prevent a civet cat from coming to your property.
Obviously, this will need you to actually have a dog but the idea is similar to the strong scents that we covered earlier in the article.
The great scenes of smell that civet cats have should be able to pick up the smell of the dog pee before it gets into your property and discourage it from coming any closer.
This can even work if you have a small dog breed as the civet cat can’t detect what type of dog you have or its size from the smell of its pee.
You usually don’t have to leave your dog out at night either as the smell of its pee should be enough to scare the civet cat away.
Call Pest Control!
As a last resort, you may have to get pest control involved in getting the civet cat away from your property.
Although it is rare, we have seen some reports from people where a civet cat has actually managed to get into the property and refuses to leave with pest control usually being the best option to take in these situations.
Pest control is offered as a free service in some areas but you may have to pay for the service in others so always double-check before you book the pest control agent.
Depending on your area, there may be a local ordinance in force that offers grants from the local council that you are able to use towards your pest control bill too.
This does tend to be in Southern Europe as civet cats have been raiding homes and causing trash to blow all over areas of natural beauty.
The general idea is that it is cheaper for the local authority to pay for the pest control agent to remove the civet cats than it is to pay for clean up teams to collect rubbish from wide-open areas.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how you can get rid of civet cats to a close. We hope that you have found our article helpful and that we have been able to give you suitable ideas that you are able to implement to scare the civet cat away from your property with ease. The majority of the time, it is easy to get rid of the civet cat and the associated costs with it are minimal too.
