Raccoons are the cute furry animals but they are also well-known for their destructive acts. They are mostly found in woody areas. Raccoons mostly live in the places with water and abundant vegetation. They are nocturnal in nature and also awesome climbers. Ripped shingles, damaged crops mainly watermelon, and corn and haphazard garden are some of the indications of invasion of these creatures. They love eating vegetables and fruits, mice, and may even feed on garbage. Before they show their invasion in your home, you can use the following remedies to get rid of raccoons.
Ways to Get Rid of Raccoons:
1.) Trapping to Get Rid of Racoons
A good trap can help you to get rid of raccoons. But before trapping them, keep in mind that trapping and relocating them is illegal in many countries. In most countries, you need some legal document to relocate them. But if you have decided to trap them, then you need to buy a trap, find a trap at least 12″x12″x32″ which is solidly constructed. You can buy any type of bait since raccoons will eat anything. Canned cat food and canned tuna will also work well, but in many cases, they end with the wrong animal like neighbor’s pet.
You should prefer putting fruits for them to trap. When you will trap them, make sure to take them at least 10 miles away from your home in a raccoon-friendly environment. So that they can live there and not die from hunger. But be very careful while leaving them because they can bite you.
2.) Keep your Yard Clean to Get Rid of Raccoons
If your yard would be clean and there will not be any food for them, so there will be no reason for them to come around. Don’t leave any pet food or any type of food for overnight because raccoons love to eat that stuff. If there is any fruit tree in your yard, make sure to rake up any fallen fruit from your yard. If you will leave that fruit, it will start to rotten down on the ground and release the extra fragrant and lure the raccoons.
Bird feeders may also the reason to attract raccoons so that you need to bring your bird feeder in every night for at least 10 days. If the raccoons don’t live in your yard, there is a chance that, they quit stopping there once they realize that there is no food available for them. They could even come again but at least you will have a piece for some time.
3.) Protect your Trash to Get Rid of Raccoons
This is one of the very important aspects of raccoon control. Keep them out of the garbage. There will be no reason for them to leave your place, if you will constantly, but inadvertently feed them in your garbage. You need to buy some good, solid metal trashcans. You can protect your trashcan from a bungee chord or a cinder block. It is a very painful method because you will need to remove them when you will throw your trash. You need to cover your garbage bin. If you are not comfortable with this idea so you can even double bag any waste products so the alluring smell will not be as strong and they will not get attracted towards your waste.
4.) Make them Feel Unwelcome to Get Rid of Racoons
Putting up a fence is a great way to get rid of raccoons. But they are a great climber so you need to put an electric fence. You can make almost any fence electrifying by adding one strand of wire about nine inches up from the ground and nine inches back from the fence and connecting it to a pulsating fence charger. You can use this same method around your fish ponds, garden, shrubs, trees etc. The only difference is that you will need two strands. One at 6 inches up from the ground and one at about 1 foot. You just only need to run them at night. You need to keep in mind that keep clear away any wood piles, brush, old logs or anything that raccoons might be able to use as a cover.
5.) Employ Scare Tactics to Get Rid Racoons
There are many products available in the markets to scare them and get rid of raccoons problem. But the main problem is that they are very smart and quickly realize that the thing you put there can’t really harm to them and therefore becomes useless. So there is a solution for this problem which you can use to scare them. Switch up the scare devices regularly so the raccoons will not be able to understand. There are the variety of motion activated devices available in the market including flood light, or you can set radio in the talk channel as raccoons avoid human voices. You can also put sprinklers ad ultrasonic noisemaker.
6.) Cayenne Pepper to Stop Raccoons
If you don’t want to kill raccoons then it this is obviously going to help you to get rid of raccoons. Cayenne pepper is considered as one of the best raccoons repellants. These little creatures don’t like the smell of cayenne pepper. Then spraying this is a solution to all your problem. You just need to add one small canister of cayenne pepper and one bottle of hot sauce with a gallon of water. Pour this mixture into the spray bottle and spray this solution over your garden plant, shrubs, and bushes.
7.) Critter Ridder to Get Rid of Raccoons
It is an effective raccoons repellant with all natural organic ingredients which is effectively used to get rid of raccoons. This product contains capsaicin, black pepper, and piperine. Spray this solution on your garden, bushes and shrubs. When they will visit your home they will not like the smell of this product and after a couple of visits raccoons associate it with your garden and stay away from it.
8.) Ammonia to Stop Raccoons
Ammonia is very effective to get rid of raccoons. You just only need to position several ammonia soaked rags near the entrance of the raccoon’s nest. Or spray some ammonia around the places where you spot that little creature. Sprinkle one cup of ammonia solution around the trash can. Spray ammonia on the ground in the places to the raccoons are drawn.
9.) Close the Entries to Get Rid of Raccoons
Seal all the access point with wired cloth, wooden plank or good quality net to prevent the entry of raccoons in your home. You can also use newspaper at the entry point of raccoons. You need to put the multiple layers of newspaper in the compressed form in the holes and crevices.
10.) Predator Urine
You can easily buy raccoons deterrent from the market. Prefer buying the urine of wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats and spray it around the area where you spot raccoons. This will trick them into thinking that, the predators are nearby and scare them off and they will leave the place.
Tips
- If all things fail, you can call your local animal control board for more information about raccoons and call them to help you out.
- If you leave the water and food on your garden or another area or even leave the house dripping water, you will see that wildlife animals will be hanging around your home in order to drink the water. So try to keep clean and keep it spotless and you will be raccoon free.
- Make sure that there should not be any easy entrances to your attic.
- If you have dogs, that can also help you. Having him outdoors in the daytime will keep your home away from the raccoons. Watch your dog carefully because barking of your dog might scare some wildlife and your dog can be a target of bigger wildlife like a bear. Always keep in mind that never leave your dog tied up outdoors, ever.
- Even a bird feeder can attract the raccoons to your home. So try to put your bird feeder out of their reach and store seeds in a metal trash can.
- You can also check about the raccoons in the cramping books and wildlife books for hints
Raccoons Diseases
- Roundworm– Baylisascaris procyonis in raccoons is well-documented, and the parasite can make you ill. The parasite is spread through the ingestion of eggs passed in feces. These can be inhaled or ingested.
- Rabies– Raccoons are classified as a rabies vector species, along with foxes, bats, and skunks.
- Leptospirosis– Raccoons are capable of transmitting and carrying this disease.
- Distemper– This disease is very similar to rabies and can also affect your pets. However, this disease is not a threat to humans. Contact your veterinarian to discuss any concerns, and make sure that your pets should be vaccinated annually against this and other diseases.