What are the signs that I have raccoon in my attic?
- Damage to your home — Raccoons may tear off shingles, chew through soffits, or gnaw through electrical wiring or insulation. You may also notice damaged roof vents or bent siding.
- Noises — Raccoons are playful and like to tumble around, making loud noises that you will hear. These include rustling, scurrying, chewing, scratching, and footsteps. Young raccoons may also chatter and chirp when calling for their mothers. Thumping noises are another surefire sign that you have a raccoon in your attic.
- Nesting materials — Raccoons typically get their nesting materials outdoors, so you may notice twigs, leaves, shredded cloth, paper, or pieces of torn up insulation on your roof.
- Stains coming through your ceiling — Raccoons leave droppings and urinate away from their nest, where it starts to build up. If they have lived in your attic long enough, you’ll start seeing urine stains coming through your ceiling.
- Other signs — You may also notice feces inside the attic or on the roof, or paw prints and scratch marks on your home’s woodwork.
How do I get rid of a raccoon?
Raccoons have adapted well to live in cities which makes raccoon removal and trapping a real challenge. The experts at Animal Control Management at trapping raccoons and removing them from your property.
Their goal is to find food and shelter. That’s why you often see (or hear) raccoons around garbage cans or other easy to obtain food source. They also love attics and that is where you will often find them. Florida has rules about using steel traps and the use of a light at night to trap nuisance raccoons.
Raccoons in central Florida are always on the lookout for a great place to live and your attic is just right. Attics provide a dry, warm, safe shelter for raccoons to raise their young. Raccoons enter your home by prying open areas in soffits and vents and, once inside, the damage begins. Destruction of duct work, insulation, wiring, and wood often takes place, as well as damage to personal belongings stored in the attic.
Meanwhile, your attic has also become an indoor toilet for your new tenants who leave behind urine and droppings. So, you’ll definitely need an expert to decontaminate the attic and your personal belongings that the raccoons got into.
Hire a humane trapper for quick raccoon removal
The first step in removing raccoons is to trap them. This has to include any baby raccoons that they had while they were in your attic. Our licensed animal trappers will identify their location and place traps strategically to capture all of the raccoons. Often, we have to capture the baby raccoons by hand.
You can certainly try to trap a raccoon yourself. But, they are nasty animals and are aggressive especially if there are baby raccoons involved.
If you want to hire an expert that already knows how to humanely trap and relocate a raccoon call ACM in Volusia County at (386) 235-2000. If you are in Brevard, Seminole, Orange or Alachua Counties call us at the following telephone numbers:
| Melbourne: (321) 676-9007 | Sanford/Orlando: (407) 322-6770 | Gainesville: (352) 414-1944 |
Once we trap the raccoons we’ll relocate them away from your property. We have designated locations throughout the area that meet the rules for nuisance wildlife relocation where we are permitted to release them. Our process is safe and humane. ACM is a licensed and insured Raccoon Trapping and Removal Service throughout Florida.
How do I keep Raccoons out of my attic?
Raccoons are sneaky and desperate for a safe environment. That’s why your attic is so appealing to them. All they need is a small hole under the eave or loose soffit and raccoons will tear a hole around the opening to enter your attic. Often, you won’t even see the hole when you are looking from ground level. But, you’ll definitely hear their noises as they move around in your attic.
Raccoon Removal and Exclusion Services
Before you just close up the opening, you absolutely need to clean up the area where they were nesting. Raccoons carry disease and the spores from their poop can can cause infections in humans. Cleaning and disinfecting the area is the most important part of our service from a safety standpoint.
Proper repair of the entry point is the key to keeping the raccoons from getting back in to your attic. You can do it yourself. But, we have been doing this a long time and know how raccoons behave. Unless the racoon entry point is properly repaired other raccoons or even squirrels will find their way back in. We are licensed to perform repair and exclusion services.
From start to finish you can count on our team. We will work quickly to ensure that all raccoons have been removed from your residence, and we will implement methods that will effectively keep them from entering your home in the future. You will also be happy to know that our techniques are humane.
Animal Control Management also has experts in:
| Armadillo Removal | Squirrel Removal | Snake Removal |