Category Archives: Raccoons

Anything to do with raccoons

Animal in the Wall, Raccoons

A Bear-y Big Problem

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Living in the mountains, there are always wild animals running around our yard, and as long as they stayed in their place and we stayed in ours we had no problem with it.  The problem came when we found raccoons in the walls of our house.  We were watching TV in our upstairs bedroom when all of a sudden we heard a soft thud in the wall between where we were and the room adjacent.  I muted the TV and we sat listening to see if anything else would happen; and sure enough about a minute later we started to hear scratching and climbing.  We waited to see if it would be able to get itself out of the wall or if we’d have to cut it free; luckily within 10 minutes it was up and out of the wall.

Considering this happened late at night I waited until the next day to look around outside and see where it might have been able to gain access to the wall.  I walked around the perimeter and looked up into the eaves and along the soffit to see if I could find any significant gaps or evidence of the raccoon from the wall.  As I came around the back of my house I found a fairly large hole tucked up into a tight corner I wouldn’t be able to get to, but I was sure a raccoon could so I called up a professional wildlife removal company in hopes that they’d be able to seal of the entrance and keep raccoons and other unwanted animals out of my walls.  They picked up and we set an appointment for an inspection the next afternoon.

Now keep in mind, this is early spring we’re talking about; a lot of hibernating creatures are waking up and lingering around looking for food.  When the technician came to the house the next day I walked them through the house and showed them where we heard the raccoon in the wall, then I took him to my bedroom to see where the gap was I found outside my bedroom window.  Since you couldn’t see it very well from the window, he wanted to crawl out onto the roof and get a better look. He sat in the window sill, slid his feet out, stood up, and then froze.  I leaned out to ask if he needed any help, and I froze too.  Standing just below us, out of sight from inside the window, was a black bear, staring right back up at us.  Neither of us wanted to spook it even though we were reasonably out of its reach on the second floor of my home, but we stood still.  After about five minutes of anxious silence, the bear ran back up the hill into the woods.  We finished the inspection, but I think my problem could be much bigger than just a raccoon in the wall.

Raccoons

A Watery Grave

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I think there might be a dead animal in the crawlspace of my house? About two weeks ago I started to smell something strange when I was in the kitchen but I kind of passed it off as just bad food or even my imagination.  The problem is that it has only gotten worse and I cleaned out my fridge and all of the cupboards and pantry, so I know it’s not rotting food.  It’s the worst around the sink so I even had my plumber come and clean out the lines but he said they were good as new, and when I mentioned the smell he didn’t think it was coming from the pipes, but the crawlspace.

Earlier this year I noticed a couple of raccoons running out from the side of my house, and when I checked it out I found a small gap between the house and the dirt and when I shined a light down it, I could see into the crawlspace.  I wasn’t sure then if the raccoons were living there because I had never heard anything, but now I think that that might be what the dead animal smell from the crawlspace is.  We had some really heavy rain towards the middle of February that caused the crawlspace to flood, and if the raccoons really were living down there, it’s possible that when it flooded one couldn’t get out and drowned.

So really, my concerns are doubled.  First, that there is possibly a dead animal in the crawlspace, and second that there still might be other raccoons living down there (with the corpse ick!).  I’m trying to find someone to come out and see if either of those things are true, and to fix them afterwards.  I just want to go back to living in a clean, fresh kitchen when I didn’t worry about animals living and dying in my crawlspace and my only concern was flooding.  That is what I need, can anyone help!

Raccoons

Undisclosed Infestation

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Personally, when I’m buying houses I prefer that they don’t come with raccoons in the attic, but maybe that’s just me.  We bought the house in December, and granted the raccoons didn’t move in until late January, but according to the neighbors this was not the first time raccoons had gotten into the house’s attic; and I am very frustrated that it was never mentioned once when we were looking into the house!  At one point the realtor even asked about a strange smell coming from the attic, and the owner acted oblivious to what it was!

When the smell started to get worse and small sounds started coming from the attic, I went to investigate, and I was shocked by what I saw.  The entire attic was in shambles!  There were raccoon feces everywhere, torn insulation, ripped up dry wall, and a hole directly through the roof to the outside.  I was in a disgusted trance, looking at the entire mess; truthfully I didn’t think it could get any worse; until I heard a throaty growl coming from the far corner.  My eyes met the large, furrowed face of a mother raccoon, right there in my attic.  It took me about 20 seconds to realize what I was seeing and to get the hell out of dodge.

For the last month-and-a-half, my wife and I have been watching the attic carefully.  We’ve seen the raccoon leave several times during the night, and once, when she was up early enough, my wife saw it going back in from the hole I saw.  It’s obvious that this problem isn’t just going to solve itself; I did a little research and apparently raccoons mate around January, meaning that this lone raccoon could be pregnant and just waiting to pop out 2-5 new raccoons into the attic!  I’m not even a father of a human child yet, I am NOT ready to deal with baby raccoons, especially not in my attic!

Animal in the Wall, Raccoons

Living in Fear

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I am literally on the verge of moving into a different house.  There are raccoons in the ceiling of my split level home, and they are pushing me to my limits.  Before they got into my house I would occasionally see them outside, sometimes even running across the roof. They are huge animals, I don’t have the slightest idea how they got into the ceiling.  There aren’t any gaps that big, I checked; but since they’ve gotten up there they have caused me nothing but anxiety and problems.

At first they just ran around and you could hear them skittering and chirping, and it was only a mild problem; definitely something I could deal with.  Then one day my front porch light stopped working, I changed the bulb but nothing happened, I checked the cord and it had been completely chewed through.  I let that go, I could live without a porch light.  Then things went from bad, to worse.  Urine stains started showing up on the ceilings in multiple rooms, not only was the smell bad but the ceiling material was starting to rot and crack.

After the urine stains, my raccoon problem got unforeseeably worse: THEY CHEWED THROUGH MY AC AND HEATING SYSTEM! It was completely destroyed, beyond repair, I couldn’t believe it.  I was tearing out my hair and picking at my skin, constantly on edge, and then a raccoon nearly fell into my lap!!  The raccoon had been standing on the vent just above me and another raccoon put weight on it and it fell open! The one fell, looked me in the eyes and ran rampant through the house until I could get it outside.  I’m at my wits end, I’ve become superstitious and am always looking over my shoulder and flinching at every sound, I can’t keep living like this. The raccoons in my ceiling are about to run my out of my own house – I need help or I need a realtor.

Raccoons

Out of Ideas

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We’ve tried everything to get rid of the raccoons in the attic, but at this point it seems impossible.  They’ve been there for what, a couple of months now?  I can’t pinpoint an exact time because we actually didn’t know they were there until a month or so ago, which is when we first saw the mother raccoon go into the attic.  Before that, we just heard the occasional bumps and creaks that we gave the old house credit for.  We would have been none the wiser if our neighbor’s cat hadn’t gotten into a tiff with the raccoon, leaving us to investigate the commotion and catch the raccoon crawling through a gap in the soffit.

After that we listened carefully to the sounds from above the ceiling, and it became fairly clear to us that there was more than just one raccoon in the attic, she had babies, so we started to do our research.  Anything we could think of we looked up: how to get rid of raccoons in the attic, trapping raccoons, the most effective raccoon removal methods; all of it.  After we made a list of possible solutions, we started to check them off one at a time.  We turned the lights on in the attic, we started playing loud music during the day when we were gone, we set traps outside where we thought we might catch the mother, and we even put ammonia soaked rags up there with a fan to blow the smell around.  We took every step possible, and we thought it had worked.

Not long after we had started harassing the raccoons, I saw the mother leave the attic with what looked like a baby in her mouth. We were ecstatic! After we celebrated for a minute, my husband went out and sealed off the gap we saw her entering and exiting through.  We went to bed happy that night, thinking all was well.  Of course, happy endings are for fairy tales and the next night the raccoon came back, tore the soffit open again, and has been hiding out there for the last 4 days (she hasn’t left once).  We can’t hear any babies anymore, but we don’t know what she’s doing up there and we have nothing left to try.  Please, we need some serious help to get rid of the raccoon in our attic, I can’t keep doing this.

Animal in the Wall, Raccoons

What’s Living in the Attic?

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There are raccoons in the attic of our rental home.  My family has lived here for about 7 weeks now, but before that it sat empty for 2 years; I think they probably started nesting here during that time.  The first 3-4 weeks we didn’t even notice them because of all the racket we were making trying to get settled in, but after that we started to hear sounds almost every night and we started to suspect that we weren’t the only renters in the house.

It started as just small thumps from the ceiling, and at first I just attributed it to the new heating system, I figured everything was still adjusting.  Then we started to hear scraping and thumps in the walls and the sounds of baby animals whining and calling out to their mother.  That’s when we figured out who our house guests were.  Obviously we couldn’t call anyone in to confirm our suspicions until our landlord approved it, unless we wanted to pay for the inspection out of pocket; so we called him and let him know what was going on.  He told us he would take care of it and set out some live traps hoping to catch the raccoons himself, but no luck. We suggested that he call a professional Wildlife Removal Technician, but he wanted to try everything else first; so, we waited.

It wasn’t all that bad, we knew that the landlord would take care of any damages caused by the animals so that didn’t bother us.  The problem was, my daughters were terrified of the sounds they would hear at night.  They’re 6 and 8, so their imaginations are vast and even though they knew what the animals were, they were so afraid that they were trying to eat them while they slept.  Cue sharing a bed with my kids for two weeks. BUT, last night my landlord called and told me I could call in the big guns, so there’s an inspection scheduled for later this afternoon and hopefully the raccoons in the attic will be long gone by the end of the week!

Raccoons

Night Raid

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So we’ve had raccoons in our yard for about a long time now.  We live in a bit of a rural area so this isn’t a new thing to us, but what is new is my dog: Minnie.  She’s a toy Australian Shepherd that my husband surprised me with on Christmas last year.  I absolutely adore her but we’ve never had a small dog before; in fact we have only ever owned full size Labradors.  He bought her for me when I casually mentioned how fun it would be to have a little lap dog to cuddle with when he’s deployed.  Well he’s a better listener than I guess I gave him credit for because there she was, with a bow on her head under the tree just a few months later.

The only real problem with having a tiny dog like her in a place like here is all the other animals that she has to compete with.  She’s only about 10 pounds so most of them outweigh her greatly; usually we don’t have a problem with any of them, except the raccoons in the yard.  It’s not like she attacks them or anything either, in fact she’s terrified of them! They attacked her when she was very young and she’s been careful of them since, but since she won’t fight back they definitely pick on her.  I’ve had to scan the yard with a flashlight every time she wants to go outside at night for months!  It’s absolutely ridiculous, but I love my dog too much to leave her to her own devices.

Now last night was the same routine, Minnie scratches at the door around 1 am, I scan the yard for any reflection of the raccoon’s eyes, and then I let her out.  I must have been very tired because I missed them last night and not long after I shut the door I heard my little dog crying for help.  I ran outside barefoot in little more than a nightgown and robe to save my Minnie! Two of them had attacked her and while they hadn’t done serious damage, I still had to take her to get sewed up this morning as soon as her vet’s office opened up.  I have had enough of this.  I know I should let her learn to defend herself but I’m not just going to stand by!  I’m going to finally take care of these raccoons in my yard one way or another!

Bats, Raccoons, Rats, Skunks, Snakes, Wild Animal

Gone Postal

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I’ve been a mailman for about thirty years now, and boy let me tell you about some of the things you see.  And it’s not just the people, either!  I’ve seen my fair share of home drama, yelling, throwing lamps, and storm outs; but it’s the encounters with animals that I’ll never forget. At this point I’m surprised they don’t train you in animal control as well as package identification!  Beyond dogs and cats, I’ve seen raccoons, bats, mice, and a load of other wild animals.

The most common ones (for me at least) are the snakes, especially during the hotter months.  They’ll lay themselves out on sidewalks, driveways, and even porches.  When I was a Boy Scout I learned to identify most of the snakes in my area, so I can always tell whether or not they’re poisonous, but the people inside the house aren’t as capable.  Once, when I was delivering a package that needed a signature, a big ol’ bull snake was out sunning himself on the porch.  Well when the young miss from the house opened the door and got a look at him, she screamed so loud I just about dropped the package, then she fell unconscious right in front of me!

Another time, I was trying to deliver quite a large package but no one was answering the door so I opened the screen to leave a note with the date and time I came and a bat flew down and hit me square in the head!  I guess it had been sleeping between the screen door and the front door and I had woken it up with my door bell ringing.  I even got sprayed by a skunk once!  I was walking down the steps after dropping off some mail and out of nowhere (but actually from under the stairs), a skunk sprayed everywhere.  I guess I had spooked it from stomping around, who knows?  All I know is after all of these years, I definitely consider myself a well-rounded expert on both mail delivery, and wildlife.

Raccoons

Shelter from the Storm

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We’ve got a problem, a big raccoon problem! This winter has been a particularly cold one, and not just for people it seems.  Now I would have guessed I had a squirrel problem or even a beaver problem before I said raccoons, I didn’t know they chewed on things! Well I mean I figured they chewed things, but not like this.  I mean, it’s not just a couple of bite marks here and there, they chewed a hole through the back wall of our wood shed.  It looks like they’ve been hiding out in there all winter.

They aren’t afraid of us at all, either.  That’s what worries me the most.  My daughters have a play set out back that they love but I’m so worried that something will happen with the raccoons that I’ve stopped letting them go back there without my husband or I.  I’m not kidding when I say they will walk right up to you, and the past couple of nights they’ve came up to the back porch and started scratching at the glass door trying to get into the kitchen! Not to mention that they are breaking into our garbage cans regularly and scattering trash all over.

This raccoon problem is getting too out of hand; I am worried out of my mind about my kids, I’m scared to go outside, and I don’t know how long they’ll be there!  We need some serious help ASAP. I’ve called animal control and they were absolutely no help, and the local humane society doesn’t want to do anything either! I am seriously freaking out about this, I just need to get rid of these raccoons, please!

Raccoons

A Little Advice

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The best advice I could give to anyone is this: if you find a raccoon in your attic, call a professional.  Last month, we started hearing what sounded like scratching and chewing coming from outer wall.  It worried us a little bit, but we only heard it a couple of times so we gullibly let ourselves believe it was just the air conditioning making funny sounds and that we would call someone about it if it got any worse. That means that for three weeks, damage was being done that we still haven’t seen (hint: DON’T IGNORE THE SOUNDS!!)

Last week while we were outside on the porch, a louver from the attic vent came loose and fell out onto the deck.  No one was hurt but it definitely scared us all! We experienced a similar shock when my husband, Ben, climbed up on a ladder to replace the louver, yelped, and dropped it back on the deck (needless to say we had to buy a new louver). When he leaned in the hole, he came face to face with a very angry raccoon; we decided it was best if we waited until AFTER the raccoon had left at night before we tried to reattach the louver again.

That night at about 9 o’clock after we saw the raccoon leave, Ben reinstalled the louver and we called it a night.  The next morning we discovered an absolute disaster outside.  The raccoon had crawled around the entire house and clawed at the vents, the soffit, anything that would reach the attic until it finally got back in by tearing off another vent. We think that she has babies inside and that’s why she was so aggressive about getting back in, and that would also explain the sounds in the walls.  Anyway, we are having someone come out and look at the attic and hopefully the problem will be resolved soon; but again, if you find a raccoon in your attic, just call in the professionals.