Raccoons are smart and flexible animals that are known for hiding their faces and being sneaky. These smart animals often find their way into places where people live, like our homes, where they can be very annoying. Discovering how raccoons get into our homes is the first thing that we need to do to keep them out.
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Lots of ways to get in
Raccoons are very good at climbing, so they can get into your home through a number of different openings. Some of these are:
- Attics: Raccoons are very good at figuring out where your roof or attic is weak. To get in, they might tear through roofs, soffits, or vents. Their sharp paws and strong claws cut through a lot of building materials quickly.
- Chimneys: Raccoons will come right up to a chimney that isn’t covered. It’s easy for them to get down and get stuck inside your house.
- Raccoons can get into homes through vents or holes in the floor that are in the crawl space. They are ready to squeeze through small openings to get to safety.
- Uncapped Roof Vents: Raccoons are known to get in by removing vent covers or caps. They can make nests and do a lot of damage once they get inside.
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Smart Paws and Strong Claws
Raccoons’ front paws are very flexible and sensitive, which lets them move things around, open doors, and even untangle complicated mechanisms. They can get into trash cans, pet doors, and sometimes even sliding glass doors that aren’t locked properly because their hands are so flexible.
Their sharp claws help them grip many objects well, which makes them very good climbers. This is especially scary for people who live near trees that hang over their homes, because raccoons can use these as launching pads to get to roofs and upper floors.
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Intruders at Night
Because raccoons are mostly active at night, you might not notice what they’re doing until you hear strange noises at night or see damage in the morning. They are sneaky attackers because they move quietly at night and have good night vision.
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Seeking a place to stay and food
Raccoons will eat anything that comes their way, so if they find food sources near your home, they might decide to stay. This can include things like pet food left outside, trash cans that aren’t closed, or compost bins that are easy to get to. Once they know where the food is coming from, they may decide to move closer to it, which could mean going into your attic or crawl space.
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Dens for raccoons
Racoons look for a safe, warm, and dry place to make a den once they get inside your home. Attics and stairs are great places to put them because they are insulated and out of the weather. In their presence, however, their urine, feces, and breeding materials can cause damage, and they may also spread diseases.
Stopping raccoons from getting in
There are several things you can do to keep raccoons out of your home:
- Secure Entry Points: Check your home often for holes and weak spots that rats could use. Put chimney caps on top of the vents in the attic and fix any holes or cracks.
- Keep pet food inside, cover trash cans with lids that fit tightly, and lock pet doors to get rid of things that might attract them. Do not feed rats, whether you mean to or not.
- Cut Back overhead Tree Branches: Raccoons could use overhead tree branches as ways to get to your roof.
- Put up motion-activated lights. These will scare raccoons away and keep them from coming near your house.
- Talk to experts: If you think you have a raccoon problem or have had problems with them in the past, talk to experts who remove wildlife. They can safely look at the situation and figure out what to do.
To sum up, rats really do come into our homes without us knowing. It’s hard to keep them out because they are smart, quick, and determined. But if you take quick action and take steps to stop them, you can lower the chance that these hidden thieves will set up camp in your homes.
At Raccoon Control Lindsay we offer our neighbors across Lindsay with a high-quality, robust, and reliable set of pest control solutions that include exclusion services and proofing services against all kind of pests and wildlife including the notorious raccoon that roams Lindsay causing all sorts of trouble.