Raccoons are bold, smart, resourceful, and can be a total nuisance. These garbage-loving wildlife pests are common all over the US, which means wherever you are, these dumpster divers are living nearby.
Raccoons rely on humans for habitats. They love living in the shadow of our homes and eating our leftovers. To keep raccoons away from your home, you need to deprive them of the things they want.
How to Prevent Raccoons From Taking Over Your Property
1. Block Off Shelter
Like many other pest animals, raccoons like to hide in sheltered, dark, and quiet places. Homes often provide natural cover and shelter from the elements and predators. Raccoons often make simple dens in tree hollows, under decks, porches, crawl spaces, or in window wells.
To prevent raccoons from taking up permanent residence near your home, cut them off from shelters like these. Install wire mesh fencing to cover the gap between the ground and your porch or deck. Cover or fill in tree hollows.
2. Keep Your Yard Clean
Raccoons eat a variety of insects, fruits, nuts, seeds, plants, and small animals. Additionally, raccoons will look for and eat grubs from yards causing substantial damage.
Look for easy sources of food raccoons could rely on. Dispose of fallen fruit, nuts, seeds, or berries in your yard. Make sure bird feeders aren’t leaking bird seed. Rake up fallen leaves and keep your lawn as trimmed and weed-free as possible. You can’t keep them from finding food nearby, but you can keep your yard from turning into a buffet.
3. Clean Your Garage and Keep the Door Closed
Garages have an irresistible combination of things raccoons want. Because they’re dark, sheltered, warm, secluded, and stocked full of food (particularly pet food), raccoons are notorious for taking up residence inside. They’ll hide among firewood or other debris, eat bird or grass seed, and generally make a pest of themselves.
You should keep your garage door closed whenever you’re not using it. Re-examine what you keep in your garage. Raccoons can smell seeds, potted plants, and especially garbage from far away. Remove anything that may attract raccoons.
4. Use Chimney Caps
Raccoons are skilled climbers. Given the opportunity, raccoons will climb to the roof of your home and they may even try to get inside via your chimney.
Look for possible ways raccoons could climb onto your roof. Trim tree branches, bushes, or vines that touch your home. Install chimney caps on all chimneys on your roof.
5. Keep Your Trash Can Clean
Raccoons are particularly attracted to messy garbage cans with loose food remains. The smellier the better.
Wash out your garbage cans and dumpsters once a month. You should also keep garbage in heavy-duty sealed plastic bags. Rinse out disposable containers before throwing them out. The cleaner you keep your garbage, the less appealing it will be to raccoons and other wildlife pests.
6. Tie Your Dumpster Closed
Raccoons will often choose where to live because they can access garbage nearby.
Use a pair of bungee cords to tie your garbage lid down. Keep your cords over the dumpster lid whenever you aren’t using it. If a raccoon can’t get into your garbage, it’ll likely find an easier meal somewhere else.
7. Get Help From Professional Wildlife Control
If you’ve tried all the tips above and you still end up with a raccoon problem, schedule a service with Varment Guard right away. Our animal control experts have the knowledge and tools necessary to remove raccoons and provide you with peace of mind.
