A raccoon infestation typically starts with one or two animals finding shelter in your attic, crawl space, or under a deck, then escalating into a costly and potentially hazardous situation. Raccoons are strong, intelligent, and persistent. They can rip through shingles, soffits, and roof vents to get inside, and once they establish a den, they create dedicated latrine sites, shred insulation, and chew wiring. The sooner you identify and address the problem, the less damage you’ll deal with.
Signs You Have Raccoons
The most obvious clue is noise. Raccoons are nocturnal, so you’ll hear heavy thumping, scratching, or scurrying in your attic or walls after dark. They’re far louder than mice or squirrels. During the day, things go quiet because the animals are sleeping.
Outside, look for damage around your roofline. Raccoons tear through shingles, pry open soffits, and rip apart roof vents to create entry points. On the ground, overturned trash cans are a classic sign, along with holes and torn-up sod across your yard from nightly foraging, especially in mid to late summer. Flower beds and vegetable gardens may be dug up as well.
Inside your attic, the signs are harder to miss once you look: shredded insulation, torn ductwork, scratched or damaged wooden beams, and chewed electrical wiring. That last one is a genuine fire hazard. Over time, as raccoons scurry around and build nests, they can tear through insulation and sheetrock badly enough to cause sagging or even holes in your ceiling.
Raccoons also create dedicated latrine sites, separate from their den, where they repeatedly defecate and urinate. Common locations include rooftops, attic corners, woodpiles, and the area on or under decks. These accumulations of waste will eventually destroy insulation and saturate woodwork with moisture and ammonia.
Health Risks From Raccoon Waste
Raccoon droppings carry a parasite called raccoon roundworm that poses a serious threat, particularly to young children. The eggs shed in feces become infectious after about two to four weeks of sitting in the environment. If someone accidentally ingests the eggs (by touching contaminated soil or surfaces and then their mouth), the larvae hatch in the small intestine, penetrate into the bloodstream, and migrate through the body’s organs and tissues.
Depending on where the larvae end up, they can affect the eyes, brain, or abdominal organs. Brain involvement can cause seizures, loss of coordination, paralysis, and in severe cases, coma or death. Eye involvement can cause vision changes and potentially irreversible blindness. Young children are especially vulnerable because they’re more likely to put contaminated objects or soil into their mouths. Clinical disease in humans is rare, but when it occurs, irreversible damage has usually happened by the time of diagnosis, making prevention and proper cleanup critical.
How to Safely Clean a Raccoon Latrine
Never use a leaf blower or vacuum cleaner on a raccoon latrine. Both will launch microscopic eggs into the air where you can inhale or ingest them. Instead, gather these supplies before you start: disposable rubber or latex gloves, an N95 particle mask (essential in confined spaces like attics), rubber boots or disposable plastic booties, heavy-duty garbage bags, a shovel or metal scoop, paper towels, and hot soapy water.
Lightly mist the latrine area with water from a spray bottle to keep dust down. Scoop feces into a heavy-duty plastic bag using the shovel. Wipe up residual material with a damp (not wet) sponge and hot soapy water, rinsing often. Flush dirty rinse water down the toilet. The sponge goes in a plastic bag and into the trash. For hard outdoor surfaces, boiling water or a portable propane torch can destroy eggs that chemical disinfectants won’t kill. Standard bleach does not reliably kill roundworm eggs.
After cleanup, wash your hands and nails thoroughly with soap and warm water, scrubbing under your nails with a brush. Launder your clothes separately in very hot, soapy water. Leave rubber boots outside after scrubbing them.
Getting Raccoons Out
The most reliable approach is a one-way exclusion door: a device installed over the raccoon’s entry point that lets the animal leave but prevents it from getting back in. This only works if every other potential entry point is sealed at the same time. You cannot install the door and plan to seal the other gaps later. Once the raccoons can’t re-enter, they typically give up and move on within a day or two. After a few more days of monitoring, the one-way door is removed and the final opening is sealed.
Timing matters. If a mother raccoon has babies in your attic (common in spring), a one-way door can separate her from her young, which creates a worse problem. Babies that are too young to walk won’t follow her out. In these cases, the young typically need to be located and removed by hand before exclusion can proceed. This is one of the strongest reasons to hire a professional rather than attempting removal yourself.
Trapping is another option, but wildlife laws vary significantly by state. In Ohio, for example, you can trap nuisance raccoons without a permit, but it’s illegal to live-trap and relocate them to a new area. Trapped raccoons must be released on your own property or humanely euthanized. Many states have similar restrictions designed to prevent the spread of raccoon diseases. Check with your state or district wildlife office before setting any traps.
What Professional Removal Costs
A wildlife inspection runs $80 to $150, though many companies waive this fee if you hire them for the removal. The removal itself typically costs $300 to $450, with the national average around $400. If a nest with young is involved, expect $300 to $750 for manual removal. Individual trap-and-release runs $150 to $300 per raccoon.
The removal fee is just the starting point. Sealing entry points adds to the total: animal-proof vents cost $300 to $450 each, and one-way metal mesh exclusion runs $10 to $25 per linear foot. Post-removal cleaning and disinfection typically costs $250 to $500. For a full job (removal, sealing, and cleanup), plan for $1,000 to $2,000 or more depending on the extent of damage and the number of entry points.
Preventing Raccoons From Coming Back
Exclusion is the single most effective long-term strategy. Seal every potential entry point with heavy-gauge wire mesh or galvanized sheet metal. Pay special attention to soffits, roof vents, and any gap larger than about four inches. Raccoons are strong enough to peel back lightweight materials, so use hardware cloth or metal flashing secured with screws rather than staples.
Eliminate food sources around your property. Use wire clamps or bungee cords to secure trash can lids, or switch to cans with locking mechanisms. Pick up fallen fruit, bring pet food indoors at night, and clean up birdseed under feeders. Raccoons are opportunistic, and a reliable food source is the primary reason they settle near a home in the first place.
To keep raccoons from climbing specific trees or poles (to reach a roof or birdhouse, for instance), wrap the trunk with aluminum flashing or galvanized sheet metal at least three feet high, starting above the raccoon’s standing reach. For gardens, a single or double strand of electric wire six to ten inches above the ground is effective at protecting sweet corn, melons, and other crops. Electric fencing along the top of a poultry yard fence will stop raccoons from climbing over.
Frightening devices, including lights, radios, pie pans, and plastic windmills, have not proven effective beyond a few days. Raccoons habituate quickly. There are no repellents, toxicants, or fumigants currently registered for raccoon control. If a product claims to repel raccoons with scent or ultrasonic sound, there is no scientific backing for those claims. The only durable solution is physically blocking access and removing the food that drew them in.