Suburban Raccoons

Raccoons cause a lot of damage for a very specific reason, especially when it comes to tearing a roof apart. If you have raccoons inside your attic and these raccoons have babies in the attic of your home, there is pretty much nothing that will stop them from getting into the den where their babies are. They are very maternal and care for their young. They can cause a lot of Raccoon Roof Damage

Many people will block the entrance to the den as soon as they realize that raccoons are in the attic. They may not realize that they may have young babies inside. They often are too young to travel on their own. Once you block the entrance to the den, these parents hear the cries of their young raccoon pups. They will do just about anything to get to them. Humans react in much the same manner. The roof in the picture on the left is an example of what can happen. A raccoon is trying to rescue their young pups.

What Can You Do About Raccoon Roof Damage

No one wants raccoons inside their attic or anywhere near their homes. Once they have babies, they are faced with some tough choices.  You can close off the entrance to the den,  let the babies die inside your attic which will cause a smell, and take the risk that the parents will not try to get back in and do a lot of damage in the process. Just take a look at the picture we included as part of this post! Not only is the roof damaged, if it rains, but water is also going to penetrate your home and cause even more damage.

The other approach is to allow the babies to grow and once they are mobile on their own, seal all possible entrances to the den and also install a one-way trap door across the main entrance so that all of the raccoons can get out, but not back in. There are several advantages to this approach:

• The raccoons are not going to do any damage to your roof or siding since they can all get out.
• The young raccoons will not die inside your home which avoids creating an even worse mess
• They will all be forced to leave to follow their parents once you install the one-way trap door and the most important part
• No new families of raccoons are going to move in after the current ones are gone. There are lots of raccoons living in suburbia and they are constantly on the lookout for a vacated den.

Raccoon Damage  in Your Attic

Sure they made a mess in your attic and you are going to have to deal with that, but this is much better than having holes in your roof and further damage from wind, rain, or snow to your home.

Besides if you kill the raccoons, someone is going to complain and you may get in trouble with the police. You have to dispose of the bodies and you might even have them die inside your home, which is going to cause a huge bill to clean the place and get rid of the smell. Better to get rid of them with heavy gauge wire mesh across all entrances and not let any more into your attic. This solution is a permanent solution and keeps all future raccoons outside of your home. We have tried it and it works.

Loud noise, mothballs, and all of the other things you will read on the web just do not work. This approach is by far the best approach for many reasons. No mess and they are kept out of your home permanently, which works for us.

Let us know if you have roof damage from raccoons and what you did about the raccoons who caused it.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.