Customers who hear attic noises and think that they have nuisance wildlife are usually correct. People who have this problem need to know what is living in in their house. Every year I get hundreds of calls regarding problem wildlife inside the home and a large percentage of these calls are regarding attic noises.
“A raccoon in the attic” is one of my most common calls in the early spring and summer. One question that I answer frequently from my customers is “Can a raccoon fall through my ceiling?”. Raccoons, on the upper end of the scale, weigh about 20lbs. and there are excellent good odds of having more than one. Female raccoons have as many as 7 kits with the average litter being 3-4 babies. If mom and young are all snuggled up on the top side of your ceiling, that is a substantial amount of weight in one spot.
Drop ceilings are the weakest. Drop ceiling tiles are made of a fiber material that looks like shredded cardboard box. These ceilings are fairly fragile and are certainly not made to support weight. I have been handling tiles from a drop ceiling on a ladder and damaged the tiles just by dropping them. If you factor in some water damage weakening the tile…watch out. I have seen drop ceilings survive a raccoon invasion, but a break-through would be on my mind. I had one customer who discovered they had a wildlife problem when they came into work to see a couple of raccoons peering back out of a gap in the ceiling. They were a little panicked. Raccoons have little “hands” and can grasp and are able to lift tiles up if they want to.
Drywall ceilings are somewhat stronger than drop ceilings, but I never trust them when I am inspecting an attic. Their strength is dependent, to a great extent, on the quality of the workmanship that went into installing them. I have seen double-layered drywall with plenty of good screws holding it all up and I have seen drywall that is just barely hanging in place.
Water damage is as big a problem for drywall as it is for drop ceilings. Drywall is a layer of gypsum sandwiched between two layers of thin cardboard. It is relatively stiff when it is dry, but turns to mush when it gets wet. Raccoons don’t necessarily “go to the bathroom” outside. They are not dumping gallons of fluid when they urinate, but it doesn’t help any. They are always a few “calling cards” and pee stains in attics where they are denning. This, along with garden variety water damage, can increase the odds of a fall-through.
If this is your situation, you need to have a plan for getting the raccoons out in the event that a break does occur. Once they fall, inside odds are good that they won’t be able to get back up into the ceiling. The will be panicked and are likely to start to try to tear their way out to escape. At this point you need to be extremely careful. You don’t want to be in the room with a panicked raccoon and get bitten. If you have a raccoon in the attic, it is advisable to have the problem taken care of ASAP. The longer it is up there, the worse the mess will be and the more likely that there could be other problems.
The character of raccoon calls change through the year. Late summer and fall seasonal calls focus more on what kind of mischief raccoons are getting into in the back yard. Calls in late winter and spring have an entirely different nature. This is when momma raccoon is looking for a place to make a den and have her babies. Late winter and spring calls focus on what is going on in the attic. (If you need to know exactly when raccoons or other animals are nesting, check out our Problem Animal of the Season page). This is because momma raccoon is thinking about denning and raising her young. Attics, in the opinion of momma raccoons, provide excellent den sites. They are dry, private, and warm, and have an abundance of fluffy nesting material (aka your insulation).
If you have a raccoon in your attic during denning season, odds are really good that it is a female with denning on her mind. The question then becomes whether or not she has delivered her litter. If she hasn’t, that is good, but it is really hard to know. Young kits do not make a lot of noise. It is better to assume that there are babies present.
Getting a raccoon out of your attic is hard, but getting a mother raccoon out along with her babies is way more complicated. Setting a trap somewhere and catching the raccoon in the attic may seem like a simple thing, but doing this can leave you with about five pounds of rotting raccoon in your walls or attic, not to mention the crying of the babies as they slowly starve to death. This is not a good option.
Risking trapping momma without taking babies into account is not a good idea. Most people begin to notice raccoon activity long before babies are mobile. There is lots of mewing, thumping, footsteps, etc. to draw attention can occur before the babies are ready to leave the den site. Attic noise comes to a crescendo right before she leaves the attic.
Once mom finds her way inside the attic, she can put her litter just about anywhere in the attic space. She is normally in some little boxed-in area that helps her form a nest (think momma cat in a cardboard box with her kittens). It can be right in the middle of the attic or over in the low ceiling which is super inaccessible. Momma raccoons seem to prefer the hard-to-access spots. If the insulation is blown in and really thick I have seen momma raccoons squash down some insulation to make a nest area in the middle of the attic. You should hope to be this lucky.
If the nest is in the middle of the attic you can consider just climbing up there and just grabbing the babies. This isn’t something that I recommend laymen doing though. You are at a definite disadvantage. You don’t know how momma raccoon is going to react to your presence in the attic. Going into an attic carries its own special risk even without an upset momma raccoon. Drywall ceilings will not carry the weight of a person, but raccoons can generally trot over them just fine. One misstep off a rafter and BAM you could fall through a drywall ceiling. Imagine, angry momma rushes… you step back… and CRUNCH! You are lying on the floor of the living room looking into the face of momma raccoon peering at you through the hole that you just made in the ceiling doing her raccoon chitter. NO GOOD! If you go up there, you better have a good plan….experience helps. This may be a job for a professional.
Baby raccoons, once removed, can be wrangled out by hand, and put into a recovery box where mom can find them. If you will do this, she can move them to an alternate den spot. Make sure that all current entrances , potential entrances, and alternate entrances into the attic are closed before you set the babies in the recovery box. Considering the size of a raccoon, it would blow your socks off to see some of the rooftop entrances that I have come across. (I can’t tell you how many times I have heard customers say “you mean she can go through THERE!). If you don’t seal everything, you are likely to just have mom carry them right back into the attic. This time she is likely to move them to a much harder spot to access and your situation will only be worse. If you have several entrances, it is probably better to get most of your carpentry work done before you move babies to the recovery box.
If things didn’t sound bad already, here is where it gets really tricky. Momma raccoon, as I already mentioned, has a strong instinct for putting her babies where nobody else can reach them. This is just survival instinct. This leaves you with a couple of options. They are:
1. Sit back and wait till she finishes raising the litter and the babies are mobile. (She will eventually check out of the maternity ward.) This way babies aren’t stuck in the attic when mom is trapped. However, this method has its problems. There will be an ever growing amount of poo, pee, filth, and damage to the attic. Wiring, ductwork, insulation can sustain further damage while she is in there. (She can sometimes accomplish two of these things at once. I once had a customer look up in the bedroom light fixture to see a pee puddle.) Things can get even worse once the babies start to tussle and play. Think five small rough housing puppies looking for a sneaker to chew up. Also, if there is a ceiling integrity issue, there will be a risk of mom falling through the ceiling into living spaces. This is not normally a problem, but the risk is there.
2. Option two is to trap mom and be prepared to cut a hole in the drywall to remove babies and place them in a recovery box. If you do this, you will have to follow the much of the same procedure mentioned above regarding sealing all current entrances, potential entrances, and alternate entrances into the attic are closed before you set the babies in the recovery box. If you don’t, you may end up repeating the process and cutting two holes in the drywall. This option can become mandatory if a baby falls into a void inside the wall. Most walls in modern homes are hollow. They are a wooden frame with drywall on both sides. If the carpenter somehow left an opening at the head of the wall, there is a chance that one or more of the babies can fall down into it where mom can’t reach. If this happens, you will begin to hear mewing noises and maybe some scratching closer to the floor. If there is a large enough void in the wall, momma raccoon may purposely place her litter in the wall. She is an excellent climber and she might do this if there are sufficient foot holds.
3. Try applying some Kick Momma Out Fluid. Yep, no joke, it really does exist. I keep it on the truck at all times with at least two bottles in the springtime. It has a funky smell, but this stuff can work magic in a tough situation. It has to be placed as close to the nest site to work. Getting it there may require some special tricks (you tend to develop a few over the years), but it can really be worth the effort. If all goes as hoped, mom will move babies out in a night or two to a new residence. This technique is not 100% effective, but well worth trying if you find yourself in a bad situation. It is a much gentler approach than others and can save a lot of destruction and cost. It tends to work better with newer mothers than experienced mothers and moms who haven’t denned on the site before.
Seeing raccoon make repeat visits to your roof or climbing a tree next to your house can be a sign of trouble. If you have this, it is better to schedule an inspection than to wait till you hear raccoon noises in the attic.
Raccoons in the attic calls are a huge part of Wildlife Company work load in the correct season. However, most people have never heard of this. It is not the sort of thing that is on the mind of most homeowners. But, when it does happen, it is a big deal and most people need help with the problem. Raccoons sometimes turn up under homes in crawlspaces or under decks, but the most common call is a female denning in an attic.
First it is good to explain a little about raccoon biology and denning habits. Raccoons are quite at home in trees. They can actually descend a tree head first. I actually caught one doing this early one morning driving by King College. You don’t see raccoons doing this as much as squirrels because raccoons are nocturnal. It was extremely cool to see.
This is quite a feat if you think about it. This requires pivoting the rear hip around till the palm of the foot faces toward the tree. Try pivoting your own hip around till your foot faces forward. Doesn’t work so well, does it? You would probably need a friend (or enemy) to help you by twisting your foot to perform this stunt. Something would probably pop if you actually managed to do it. Squirrels are able to do this also. I mention this because only squirrels are better climbers than raccoons. This is primarily because of their reduced weight and incredible springing ability.
Raccoons climb by wrapping their “hands” around the back of the tree and bracing their hind feet against the nearer side and hitching upwards. If they can’t get their arms around the object they can use their fingers to grasp the texture of the object. For example, they don’t have to wrap their arms around a large tree if it has rough enough bark to hang on to.
This incredible climbing ability, and an instinct for nesting in high places, Arboreal nesting habits do a lot to protect the young from predation. If the female dens in a tree, it will be impossible for dogs, foxes, coyotes and other ground based species to reach the kits. This is an instinct that has paid off for raccoons for thousands of years. It is possible for a female to den in a location that is on the ground, but most of my calls involving a litter are in attics.
Climbing skills combined with an instinct to den in a high spot makes attic raccoon invasions not only likely, but inevitable for some homes. I could walk through neighborhoods and give odds on which houses are likely to be hit and be right most of the time. If I combine architectural features with other environmental factors, like proximity to flowing water sources, the predictability of raccoon invasion increases even more.
The same affinity for trees and high places that puts momma raccoon high in the hollow of a tree sends her into your attic. So how does she get up there? More often than not raccoons climb to the roof using a nearby tree. I am not sure if this reminds them of their native habitat or if it is just more convenient. They need something with branches that are strong enough to get them onto the roof. I am often surprised at how little it takes. The second most popular route involves using some type of architectural feature such as a downspout, 4x4 porch post, etc. As long as it is the right size and they can get traction to climb up.
“Nonstandard” raccoon entry point that I repaired a couple of years ago. Female raccoon climbed up the porch railing, shinnied up the post, pushed open the aluminum trim at the top, and entered the attic through the soffit.
People often ask me if they should cut the tree that the raccoon was using. I have read sites that suggest trimming trees that provide access to roofs. This might discourage a raccoon from climbing to the roof, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it 100%. If the raccoon is motivated, it is likely to find another way up and momma raccoons are nothing if not motivated. Even if the tree is gone, there are always plenty of down spouts.
There are probably baby raccoons in the attic and cutting the tree also doesn’t get them out. If cutting the tree actually did work, it would only strands them up there to die, rot, and stink. Getting them out means either going up there and physically removing them or doing something to convince momma raccoon to carry them out herself. Both these activities carry a number of risks. Entering an attic with a live raccoon carries risk. If you are considering this, you should probably read Entering Confined Spaces to Remove Wildlife and Removing Raccoons from Attics first.
The first feature that I look for on a home is a soft entry point under which there is good footing. More often than not this is at the point that the eaves make contact with the roof. At that point, the vinyl soffit is usually not nailed in well and is very easy to push up and walk through. I refer to this as a “pet door built into your roof”.
“standard” type of entry point where vinyl is loose on the under side of soffit creating rooftop cat door.
Other types of entry points are possible as long as they have good footing with a reachable soft point. Other entry points can be available due to rotted wood, or lightweight vents that can be bent or torn open to gain entry. My client base is focused around Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City, with a few calls coming from Church Hill, Erwin, Mountain City, Abingdon, and Piney Flats areas. In these areas vent issues are not as common as soffit type entry points. This probably has to do with building codes and minor differences in vent construction in our region.
non standard entry point caused by decay.
Once in an attic, raccoons can leave an incredible mess. They will sometimes shred flexible ductwork and almost always leave poop. A couple of years ago I evicted raccoons from an attic in a church that had over 125 gallons of pure raccoon poop. That wasn’t 125 gallons of poop and insulation. It was 125 gallons of PURE POOP (the attic was uninsulated). Raccoons are likely to return to the same spot year after year during breeding season. The raccoons had been in there for a number of years and the droppings had built up until they had a latrine that was six inches deep in the middle and in a circle eight feet in diameter. The raccoons had even climbed three stories into the steeple to create a latrine there.
Raccoon poop latrine inside the steeple of a church in Milligan not far from Johnson City.
I know how much it was because access was terrible and the excrement had to be carried out one bucket at a time. The heat was horrible in that attic and it was a very rough project. You sure don’t want to have to deal with that kind of thing. There is also of course an assortment of diseases that can accompany this sort of problem, but I will save that for later. Hearing about 125 gallons of raccoon poo should be enough to convince you to seal things up. The amount of damage done in an attic is related to the amount of time that animals stay in the attic and how many animals there are. Please call today to get things under control in your attic if you are having problems.
Bagged raccoon poop ready to be hauled away
Most raccoon calls pertain to removing raccoons from attic. But if you have a raccoon inside the living areas of your home, you have a serious situation! Be careful. You probably need to go ahead and call us to handle this.
1. Keep your distance from the raccoon. Do not corner the raccoon.
2. Keep children and pets in a secure locked location away from the raccoon. If you cannot secure the raccoon, it might be better to wait outside until we arrive. The bottom line is don’t get bitten!
3. If someone has been bitten or made contact with saliva, try not to let the raccoon escape. Close the door to the room the raccoon is in if you can do so without risking another bite. It will need to be tested for rabies. Call us to come and remove the animal. You will also need to call either your doctor or local health department regarding testing.
4. If no one has made contact with the raccoon or its saliva, open a door or window to the outside and allow the raccoon to leave on its own.
Once the raccoon is out of the house, you will probably need to schedule a home inspection. Though it is very common for raccoons to make a home in attics, it is relatively rare for raccoons to show up in occupied areas of a building. You should probably read about How Raccoons Get into Your Home once your situation is secure.
Check out our raccoon trapping page
“Raccoon in the attic” is one of our most common calls. Raccoons are excellent climbers and have little problems reaching rooftops where they can then enter attics. They may even enter crawl spaces if left open. Having these guys in your home can wreak havoc on your home. We had one customer who had raccoons tear about 30 holes in a flat vinyl roof while they were away on vacation. (It also rained while they were gone.)
We thought that it might be helpful if people knew a few of the signs to look for if they think they have this problem. Simply seeing a Raccoon in the back yard does not mean that you have them in the attic. Here are a few things to look for:
1. Latrines – Raccoons will make latrines in attics of homes where they live. Latrines are accumulated piles of feces. Feces looks similar to a small to midsized dog droppings.
A raccoon latrine in an attic
2. Latrines on Roof – Raccoon will create latrines on the roof of homes. If raccoons can make it to the roof they are likely to test for “soft spots” and attempt to gain entry. Make sure that possible entry points are solid if you see this happening.
Accumulated raccoon feces and pine needles on a roof.
3. Attic Noises – Raccoons make a great deal of noise in attics. Noises include footsteps, Snarls, kitten like mews, thumps, etc. Raccoons can make more noise than smaller rodents (rats, mice, squirrels) who tend to make more scratching, gnawing, and scurrying noises.
4. Out of Place Soffit Panels – Soffits are the number one entry point for Raccoons. Vinyl panels are easily pushed aside especially if they are poorly installed. However, Raccoons sometimes enter and soffit panels spring back into place. This depends, to a great extent on how the soffit was installed.
Vinyl soffit pushed up out of place by raccoons entering an attic
5. Scratch Marks on Woodwork- Scratches on 4×4 post and other wood work can be indicators of Raccoon activity. Often woodwork is used to gain access to upper portions of homes. Toenail scratches will often be left behind, especially if a post is used consistently. (see picture)
6. Roof Sightings – Sightings on roofs are cause for suspicion especially if they are regular. Once they gain access to roof areas, Raccoons will attempt to gain entry to attics. Make sure that all possible entry points are solid.
7. Foot Prints in Dust – Small footprints in the shape of a hand on the top of air conditioning ductwork are a good sign of raccoon intrusion. Often Raccoons will use ductwork as a pathway to get from one part of attic to another
Raccoon scratch marks on a support post at a home in Johnson City Tn.
8. Open Holes in Foundations – Large open holes in foundations are invitations to all types of wildlife including raccoons. Look for hand like prints on plastic sheeting, in mud, etc.
9. Unexplained Dirty Smears – Unexplained dirty smears on the exterior of your home is a good indicator of activity. Smears occur where animals climb or rub against the side of homes. Smears may be seen along downspouts if Raccoons are climbing them for access to the roof.
10. Insulation Trails – Raccoons will follow regular pathways through insulation once they gain access to the attic. Noticeable compression of the insulation will be evident. Trails will be evident. Raccoon trails are much wider than those of other species. Raccoon trails will be 10-12” wide or more.
