Why Are Raccoons In Your Attic
Wild animals live in attics due to the fact that its excellent environment. Attics are usually cozy, dry, secure, and protected from the elements. Attics frequent close closeness to the food sources of urbanized pest garbage cans, pet dog food, and also other human-influenced food sources. An attic room resembles a huge, hollow tree or cave its a fantastic place to live! Additionally, female animals have a strong denning instinct when they are expectant, and naturally seek secure, enclosed areas. Its extremely usual for a female animal about to bear young to locate its means into an attic. In fact, and Im probably going to duplicate it multiple times right here, one of the most typical scenario with raccoons in an attic room is that of a female with a litter of young. The primary factor a raccoon gets in an attic to begin with is to ensure that she can bring to life as well as increase her young pups. Hence, a lot of occurrences of raccoons in attic are in spring, from February May.
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Effective Removal: How To Remove Raccoons From Your Property
When it comes to effective raccoon removal, the first thing you are to do is to identify where your raccoons are frequenting. Only after that, you will be able to choose the best method for effective removal of them.
The more control methods you will use, the better your chances are at keeping raccoons off your property.
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Epsom Salt Is The Best For Your Yard
Epsom salt is an excellent deterrent for raccoons and is also an effective fertilizer for your garden.
You wont be using it inside your house, but if you want to keep these little rascals off your yard, then its one of the best products that you can use. Its easy to apply and doesnt require mixtures to be effective.
All you have to do is scatter them around your garden, and it should work as a deterrent that can help keep raccoons out.
If you have garbage cans or food bins outside your house, you can also use Epsom salt to discourage them from feeding there, forcing these critters to move to another location where food is more accessible. However, the scent that it produces will diminish over time.
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Seal Off Your Chimney
If you want to keep raccoons off your roof, you should seal off your chimney. This dark, tight space may not seem inviting to us, but to raccoon mothers, this is the dream maternity ward.
Yep, thats right. The most common reason a raccoon would want to enter your chimney is to give birth in it.
A chimney approximates tree holes and hollow trunks, which is where raccoons prefer to nest in the wild. Before sealing your chimney, first examine if there is already a raccoon family living in it.
Raccoon removal from chimneys is best done by pest control experts, as they can transmit diseases and become aggressive.
Once youve made sure its empty, you can now go about sealing your chimney. You can use a spark arrester or a chimney cap that has meshwork to make the hole inaccessible.
If youre installing this yourself, be sure that it is screwed in tight. Raccoons are good with their hands and can make easy work on a poorly-secured spark arrestor or chimney cap.
While its very effective at keeping raccoons out, this will require a little bit more maintenance on your part. Clean the meshwork every couple of weeks to ensure that the ash does not clog the grills.
Eliminate Raccoons With A Fence
A fence is a good way to keep pests out. Unfortunately, a simple physical barrier is not enough to repel raccoons.
These wily creatures can easily climb over or dig under the fence and get to where the food is, whether its your garden, your fish pond, or your compost pit. You should also protect newly-planted turf, as raccoons enjoy rolling this back to look for grubs underneath.
To keep raccoons out of your yard, consider installing an electric fence. The jolts will repel raccoons and discourage them from entering. You can also opt to raccoon-proof your ordinary fence with the simple addition of a single electrified wire.
How is one strand supposed to deter this large animal? Strategic placement is key to making this effective as a raccoon repellant. Install it 8 inches from the ground and 8 inches out from the fence base.
You can charge this using a fence charger typically used in cattle fencing. This has a high voltage but low amperage. For garden crops, you may consider a two-wire system set lower to the ground. One should be around 6 inches high and the other 12 inches high.
If you use electric wiring, you can save on costs by activating it from sunset to sunrise. Raccoons are nocturnal animals, so this will be the time theyll likely try to cross the fence.
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Signs Of Raccoons Living On Your Property
These are some of the common signs of raccoons either living somewhere on your property or making a habit of scavenging around your property for food:
- Trash from garbage bins strewn around your driveway or yard.
- Garbage or recycling bins with bite or scratch marks around the lids.
- Garden beds with homegrown fruits and vegetables that are damaged and eaten shortly before harvest.
- Raccoon tracks around your yard or other areas of your property. The shape of their prints is similar to that of a small human hand, just two to three inches long, with sharp, pointed claws at the tips of each finger.
- Holes in your lawn or portions of grass that have been torn or dug up .
- Scratching or bumping sounds coming from inside the walls, ceiling or some other area of your home, attic or garage this could indicate the presence of raccoons or some other rodent or wild animal that has built a den.
Whether youre experiencing signs of a raccoon outside of your home or within your walls, its crucial to take action as quickly as possible, as they are a liability to your home and your health.
Install A Motion Activated Sprinkler
An unexpected blast of water is a natural raccoon repellent. Imagine how you would feel if you were creeping around where you arent supposed to and you suddenly get doused with water coming from nowhere.
In the same way that you would run off, raccoons would too. Consistency is the key to getting rid of raccoons.
If you plan to use water to do that, youll need to have a steady stream of water showering your yard. But then youll have to be prepared for the increase in your water bill. Plus, you run the risk of overwatering your plants and destroying your garden.
The solution is to use a motion-activated sprinkler to keep raccoons out of your yard. The technology allows it to spritz water only when it detects movement.
This is a good way to repel raccoons and other pests as well. Orbit 62100 Yard Enforcer is very popular among those who want to protect their yard from pests because of its wide range of customizable settings.
If youre using this to scare away raccoons, adjust the settings so that it will only turn on at night when these creatures are most active. You can position the sensor at raccoon-level height to make movement detection easier. Install within a 40-feet radius of where you see raccoons congregate.
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Keeping Racoon Off Roofs
Raccoons can do quite a few harm to a assets if left on my own. They will dig up yards on the lookout for juicy grubs, pry open patio forums to benefit access below, rip down attic insulation to construct nests, rummage through trash cans and leave a massive mess to easy up inside the morning, and plenty extra. But whilst raccoons get right of entry to our rooftops, there is a lot more at stake. Raccoons can reason very luxurious damages to roofs. They may even cause a lot harm, a whole roof alternative will be essential. For this motive, it is important to take the right precautions to save you raccoon harm which include this. Continue analyzing to learn three effective strategies for retaining raccoons off your roof and faraway from your house.
Use Scary Lights and Sounds
Remove All Attractions
There are number one matters raccoons look for on your private home: food and water. By putting off all food and water sources at the outdoors of your home, you essentially take away the whole thing raccoons come for in the first area. Raccoons additionally come for safe haven but, thats why the third approach is likewise tremendously vital and strongly endorsed. As for meals and water assets, this consists of rubbish cans, birdbaths, squirrel feeders, fowl houses, puppy food, pet dishes, water bowls, Koi ponds, and status water. It can also include compost piles, might piles, tree homes, and extra.
Hire Professional Raccoon Control
How To Get Rid Of Raccoons From Your House & Roof
It may be tough to get rid of raccoons once they are inside your barn.
These pests are territorial and would resist staying in the nest they have worked hard to construct.
If you are wondering how to eliminate them from your home, then here are several proven DIY methods tried by homeowners.
While some may work for you, there may be few that dont.
The best approach to wipe out raccoons from your home includes combination of these methods.
- Get electric fencing installed
- Use very bright lights and noise to repel them
- Use strong-smelling things like ammonia or vinegar to drive them away from their nests
- Keep the trees of your house trimmed so that raccoons dont find an easy road to your roof
- Get trash cans which have clamped lids as raccoons may not be able to open them
- Keep vines and climbers short as they take the support of your houses exterior and climb up. Raccoons can use them as a ladder.
- Bird feeders and bowls of your pets shouldnt be left outside, especially at night as they are a major attraction for raccoons
- Seal all the access points to shelter and food and remove all the food sources which attract them to your property such as compost, produce of the garden, and garbage.
Apart from these, there are few dangerous methods, specifically when you may have to climb your attic, roof, or chimney to execute them.
Some major entrance points for these mammals are uncovered chimneys, broken vents and crevices, and holes in the attic and roof.
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How To Keep Raccoons Off Your Roof And Property
Wondering about how to keep raccoons off your roof? If so, you certainly arent alone. Even if these nuisance animals didnt carry disease or cause significant property damage, raccoons would still cause homeowners considerable trouble and annoyance, thanks to their ability to break into garbage bins and scatter trash everywhere in search of a meal. Thanks to the mess they make, the extensive damage they are capable of and their potential for spreading disease, raccoons are an unwelcome presence for almost any homeowner.
While hiring a pest control professional is the most effective and time-efficient method of keeping these critters off your roof, there are a few do-it-yourself tricks you can try before calling in the big guns:
- Trim the trees around your home so the raccoons dont have an easy pathway from your surrounding trees to your roof.
- Keep vines and other plants that are growing up your homes exterior short so raccoons cant use them as a type of ladder.
- Eliminate any food sources surrounding your home that could lead a raccoon to believe that your property is a good place to stick around.
- Place metal sheeting around your roof, as well as around the base of the trees around your property, making it difficult for raccoons to climb up them.
- Install electric fencing on top of any fence that is close to your roof.
- Keep garbage bins stored inside your garage and pet food containers inside your home.
Diy Spicy Raccoon Repeller
Did you know you can make your own homemade raccoon repellent using some choice pieces from your spice rack?
Raccoons have a sensitive sense of smell that they use to sniff out food, predators, and potential mates. Because of this, their noses are easily offended by certain smells, one of which is pepper.
You can make a natural deterrent for raccoons by mixing a gallon of water with a bottle of hot sauce or a can of powdered cayenne pepper.
Adding a couple of drops of liquid detergent will help keep the mixture where you spray it, and allow it to stay longer on the surface without evaporating.
Fill up a spray bottle with the concoction and use it wherever you see raccoons go. If you want to keep raccoons off the deck, spray around the perimeter. If you want to stop them from getting at the trash, douse the garbage cans with the stuff.
A spicy pepper spray is the best raccoon repellent if you do not want any risk of toxicity. Just make sure to spray it on places that people or pets do not touch. While this spicy raccoon spray is not poisonous, it can be irritating when accidentally rubbed into the eye.
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How Do You Get Rid Of Raccoons
You can even deter raccoons from coming with cayenne pepper. These masked marauders hate the smell of the spice. Add one small canister of cayenne and one bottle of hot sauce to a gallon of water, then spray the solution all over your garden plants, bushes and shrubs, and reapply after a rainfall. There are various other repellents you can use as well, like Mint-X trash bags, which are specifically designed to repel raccoons. Theyre all-natural trash bags that have a mint fragrance, which raccoons dislike. Motion-activated floodlights can also serve to deter raccoons.
If you have raccoons inside your home, the first thing youll need to do is figure out how they got in by inspecting your house thoroughly. Once you know how theyre getting in, determine if its a mother raccoon with young. If so, allow the babies to grow a few weeks, otherwise they will die without their mother. You can then use one-way doors to get raccoons out of attics or crawl spaces, or invest in the help of an animal control professional who can make sure that mothers and their litters are unharmed and not separated.
Test Out An Ultrasound Animal Repeller
If you want to get rid of raccoons without harming them, you may want to invest in an ultrasound animal repeller. Sudden, loud sounds will scare these critters away.
There are some products that emit prerecorded animal distress calls and predator hunting sounds, while others emit sounds in frequencies that can only be heard by certain animals.
The Chanshee Sound Wave Speaker is a good choice because it combines sound and light to scare off animals. To keep raccoons away, youll want to use setting 2 to emit sounds within the 19.5KHZ-24.5KHZ range.
You can choose other settings depending on the animal you want to repel. It has ultrasonic and sonic speakers that emit loud, raccoon repellent sounds.
This, combined with a bright, flashing LED light, makes it among the best raccoon deterrents on the market today. It has a sensor that can detect movement up to 33 feet away, and can be charged through solar energy or via USB.
Install your ultrasound animal repeller based on where you expect the raccoons to go. It can be hung over the garbage cans, driven into the soil, or placed on the balcony floor.
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Do Ultrasonic Pest Repellers Work On Raccoons
The Yard Gard and Solar Yard Gard are electronic ultrasonic repellents that use sounds out of the range of human hearing to irritate pest animals, repelling them from your property. The raccoons are not harmed by the ultrasonic frequencies emitted, but are rather encouraged to find more peaceful, untreated areas.
How Are Raccoons Getting In My Attic
They find their way into attics at points where different building materials join, through attic vents, or by tearing off fascia or shingles. Raccoons can cause significant damage to homes and buildings by pulling apart vents, soffits, and roofing to get inside. Cage traps can be effective for raccoon removal.
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In Your Yard Or Garden
When raccoons take up residence in your lawn or garden, theyre typically looking for food. Raccoons scavenging for grubs, for example, will rip up grass, flowers, and landscaping to expose their favorite food sources. This can quickly cause thousands of dollars of damage to your flowers, shrubs, and grass.
To get rid of them, we recommend the following:
- Invest in a professional grub treatment. If youre based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Smiths Pest Management will treat your lawn and garden to get rid of food sources for the raccoon, encouraging raccoons to go elsewhere . For best results, we recommend enrolling in an annual lawn grub treatment program, which keeps grubs from coming back each summer and keeps your property raccoon-free. Contact us to learn about this service.
- Use home remedies like ammonia, vinegar, ground-up garlic, powdered cayenne pepper, blood meal, or dirty cat litter. Sprinkle the natural deterrent for raccoons in highly trafficked areas to make the space less appealing for raccoons.
- Use motion-activated light or sound deterrents. These deterrents sense movement and emit loud noises or flashes of bright light, keeping raccoons away from your lawn and garden.
