Suburban Raccoons

A consumers worst night mare is shown in this picture. Raccoons are damaging my roof. You find out that the home insurance you have excludes damage from rodents and specifically raccoons. Not only do you have a hole in your roof, raccoons in your attic. When it rains, the water is going straight in. The water damages to the insulation probably will run down the  walls etc. A hole like this one can literally cause thousands of dollars in damage. Meanwhile you still need to get the raccoons out of your attic! This is a serious problem. It should have been dealt with the moment they noticed the raccoons in their attic or on the roof.

Raccoons Damaging my Roof – What to do?

The first step is to get them out and quickly. You can try trapping etc, but this approach seldom works. The best way is to install a one way trap door so they can get out but not back in. If it is going to rain over the next week, you might also install a diverter to channel the water coming down the roof away from the hole.

Once they are out, repair the external damage and place heavy gauge wire mesh over the area so they cannot get back in. There are a couple of other considerations to think about. If they have young babies inside your attic, you are going to have to get them out before you fix the roof. Otherwise the adults will make another hole somewhere in your roof to rescue them. In addition, block all other potential entrances to your attic with heavy gauge wire mesh.

Raccoons Damaging my Roof – Insurance Coverage

In our case the home insurance I have specifically excludes damage from raccoons. This was a bit of a surprise and costly as well since I have to pay for the removal as well as the repairs to my home. Fortunately there was no internal damage. We got them out quickly so the insulation etc was not damaged and we only had to deal with the entrance.

We still ended up with a bill of $900, which is a lot especially when it is not planned for. If you suspect you have raccoons in your attic, deal with it immediately, don’t procrastinate. It will just cost you money if you do.

For more posts about damage caused by raccoons, click here.

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.