Dead Animal Pickup in Columbus
There’s a carcass on your property and a shovel in your garage, and you’d rather not introduce them. Smart. Pickup is the most straightforward job in dead animal removal for Columbus homes and businesses: it gets bagged, carried off, and disposed of properly — and you never get closer than the window.
Yards, driveways, lots — anywhere on the property
Lawns and gardens
The classic morning discovery. Bagged and gone, with the ground it lay on treated if it sat a while.
Driveways and walkways
Concrete cleans up well when it’s dealt with promptly — another reason not to wait the week out.
Window wells and stairwells
Animals fall in and can’t climb out. Tight-space retrieval without turning it into a production.
Fence lines and property edges
Where wildlife travels, wildlife sometimes stops for good. Includes the awkward strip behind the garage.
Business and rental grounds
Parking lots, dumpster corrals, courtyards. One call from a manager beats a volunteer with a trash bag.
Multiple carcasses
Disturbed nests and bad weeks happen. Everything found on the visit leaves together, as one job.
Full-size deer are their own operation with their own equipment — that’s the dead deer removal page. And if the “carcass” is so far only a smell, odor removal is your starting point.
It’s the disposal, not just the lifting
The hard part of a carcass was never picking it up — it’s what happens next. Disposal has rules, bins have limits, and a bagged animal in a hot garage waiting for trash day is a problem you don’t want to meet twice. Pickup means it leaves your property the same visit, headed somewhere legitimate.
It also means the health part is someone else’s gloves: carcasses host bacteria, fleas, ticks, and occasionally whatever killed the animal. What an operator takes on, from the lifting through to the ground it lay on, is confirmed with you on the call. A carcass in the public street is a different story and worth reporting rather than paying for: Columbus takes those through 311 on 614-645-3111.
The property line is the whole answer
Around Columbus the question is never really what the animal is. It is which side of the right-of-way it stopped on, and local governments are unusually blunt about it.
- Columbus. The city states that dead animals “cannot be collected from within your house, basement or garage, or anywhere on your property,” and directs residents to contact a private company. In the right-of-way it is the Division of Refuse Collection, reported through 311 on 614-645-3111.
- Worthington. “If the animal is on private property (in your yard, driveway, sidewalk, or home) you must perform the removal yourself or contact a private company.” Street and right-of-way carcasses go to Service & Engineering on 614-431-2425.
- Hilliard. “If there is a dead animal in your yard, you are responsible for removing it.” Roadway reports go to Hilliard 311 on 614-876-7361 ext. 311.
- Gahanna. Right-of-way carcasses go to the Department of Public Service on 614-342-4005, which dispatches a street crew.
- Dublin. The honest exception. Dublin’s own animal reference list says animals found on private property “MAY be picked up if you double bag the animal and place it curbside.” If you are in Dublin and willing to handle and bag the animal, that route exists and is worth trying first.
- Unincorporated Franklin County. Norwich Township notes that a property in the township may sit on a roadway maintained by Hilliard, the county or Columbus, and says private-property carcasses should be handled “at the homeowner’s expense.”
Underneath all of it sits Ohio law. ORC 941.14(B) puts the duty on the owner of the premises and lists what counts as compliant disposal: burning, burial “not less than four feet beneath the surface of the ground,” alkaline hydrolysis, or removal in a watertight tank to a rendering establishment. That is the part that makes a shovel and a trash bag the wrong plan even when nobody is watching.
Pickup questions, straight up
It’s just one raccoon in the yard. Is that too small a job to call about?
Not at all. A single carcass in a yard is the most common reason anyone dials this number. Nobody will make you feel silly for not wanting to bag a raccoon yourself, because most people do not want to, and in Columbus the usual do-it-yourself route is closed anyway.
Can’t I just bag it and put it in my own cart?
Not in the City of Columbus. City Code Title 13 lists “animal carcasses other than those that are in the public right-of-way” among unacceptable waste, which means a carcass on your own property is not something your refuse cart is permitted to take. The Division of Refuse Collection describes its own service as collection “within the city right-of-way only.” Dublin is the local exception: the city’s own animal reference list says animals on private property “MAY be picked up if you double bag the animal and place it curbside,” which is a real option in Dublin and still means handling the animal yourself.
Whose job is it if the animal is out by the street?
That depends on which strip of ground it is on, and the answer changes by a few feet. In Columbus the Division of Refuse Collection handles carcasses in the public right-of-way and asks residents to report them to 311 on 614-645-3111. On a county road it is the Franklin County Engineer’s Office, which states it removes dead animals along the public right of way within the county road system, on 614-525-3030. Hilliard puts the split in one line: “If there is a dead animal in your yard, you are responsible for removing it. The city is responsible for removing dead animals from the roadways.”
There’s more than one. Something got into a nest.
Worth saying on the call, because it changes the job. A disturbed nest, a poisoning next door or a bad week for a litter can leave several at once. Tell us how many and where they are and what can be done about them is settled then, before anyone drives anywhere.
What about the mess where it was lying?
Mention it when you call. A carcass that sat on a patio, a deck board or soil often leaves more behind than the animal, and whether treating that spot is part of what your operator takes on is confirmed in the conversation rather than assumed here.
Leave the shovel where it is
Say what it is and where it’s lying. Pricing is confirmed before work starts.
Call 614-383-9698