Raccoon Control Hot Spots in the Tri Cities and What Causes Them

After a few years in business I started to notice that customers with raccoons in the attic or soffit problems often tended to turn up in groups.  It didn’t seem to matter whether I was in Johnson City, Kingsport, Abingdon, Elizabethton, or Bristol, I noticed the same thing.  If I had enough customers to accumulate a good data set, raccoon customers were showing up in clusters.  Sure, there are plenty of randomly-spaced raccoon problems all over our region and raccoons are a highly mobile species, so a raccoon showing up here and there is expected.  After a while though, I started to notice trends. There were some neighborhoods where my customers where only a few houses apart.  After a while this perked my interest and so I combed through my customer files and came up with a few deductions.   There are lessons to be learned from this data and I thought that the public might benefit.  So here are the leading factors that seem to influence the likelihood of a customer calling with raccoon problems.

The Big One - Water Sources

Wildlife that shows up inside the home is a function of habitat outside the home.  One of the most important habitat factors in creating a nuisance raccoon hot spot is proximity to water.  This is probably not going to be a surprise if you think about it.  Raccoons love water, especially, flowing water. How many times have you seen pictures of raccoons rubbing their little hands in a creek?  They can forage for crayfish (raccoon seafood), get a drink, etc.   I think that a good water source is probably the most important factor listed here.   You don’t have to live right next to a creek for this to be a factor in your situation.   I see customers who are a couple of city blocks away from the water source who are having issues.  Raccoons are pretty mobile.

I took my boys walking beside a creek in Bristol a week or two ago and the found “lobster claws” as the boys called them on a log beside the stream.   They were really claws from crayfish caught by raccoons.   Crayfish claws on the bank are a sure sign of raccoon presence and a good cue that you may need to have a raccoon removal professional come look for signs of entry into your attic.  Most people miss what is obvious to a professional trapper. If momma raccoon finds a suitable den site near a stream, she thinks she has hit the jackpot.  It is like finding a new home right near your work and your kid’s school. 

Man Made Raccoon Water Sources

In the absence of a flowing stream I think that there are also plenty of artificial water sources. I also have not had more than one customer complain that their gold fish were disappearing from the decorative fish pond.   Raccoons don’t like to get wet, so they aren’t going to just jump into the pond and swim after the fish, but if the pond is small and they get lucky and grab one, they will be happy to eat it.  They like to work the edges of the pond and forage with their hands.  Herons can grab fish too, and are much more efficient at it than raccoons.  They are also much more obvious.  It is easy to spot a heron at your pond in broad daylight.   Herons are daytime animals and are not nearly as secretive as raccoons.  If fish are quietly disappearing from your pond, it is probably raccoons.   Back yard fish ponds are raccoon attractors and can provide a water source in areas where streams are not available.   However, they do not provide the benefits of a larger free flowing stream of water.

Water sources also provide another food source.   Frogs that set up territory on the edge of the pond are a delicacy for raccoons.  If the frog that always went plop into your pond disappears unexpectantly, it may be a raccoon.   Frogs live right in the raccoons foraging zone… the shoreline.

Johnson City Examples

I can think of several areas that I serve that are great examples of raccoons denning near water sources.  There is usually some type of small creek flowing within 1500 feet of the customer’s home.   I do not pretend that this is a comprehensive list of problem areas.  I am not the only one servicing these areas so the bulk of the data is not available to me.  These are just some good examples that I could show you.  Here they are:

Intersection of West Market Street and Hillcrest Drive – Though it is not apparent to the public this area was, at one point, a verdant bottomland with a stream flowing through.  The raccoons still capitalize on the stream here even though it is now enclosed in drainage pipes and concrete and it has been a real hot spot.   One momma raccoon, whose den site had been discovered, was seen scampering to a city storm drain which undoubtedly runs to the stream.   Though urbanization has not been kind to the stream, the raccoons probably appreciate the privacy that storm sewers and an enclosed stream affords. One customer in this area had two litters in her attic in two successive years. On another street in this area, I could see the back of one customer’s home from the roof of another’s.

Plantation drive and Greenwood Drive – I have a small handful of customers in this areas each within a block of each other and all within a ten minute stroll of a small stream.  The stream is small enough to step across, but I think that it still serves as an excellent raccoon attractor. In this area I have had three different customers with raccoon problems all within a 5 minute walk of one another.

College Heights Drive and Southwest Ave.-  I believe that the raccoon outbreak listed here is a result of two factors.  First, the outbreak zone is about 1,000 feet from the nearest stream.  That is plenty close enough to draw a raccoon, but also I suspect that there was likely a female or closely related female (daughter) that was moving house to house as she went through a cycle of discovery and eviction.   The affected homes were nearly side by side.   This was definitely not a series of random events.

Kingsport Examples

W. Stone Drive and Clinchfield Street –  This is a prime area.  There are two streams that intersect here and my customer was only a few hundred feet from the stream.  The confluence of Reedy Creek and Gravelly Branch is located just a hundred feet or so from this intersection.  The Wellmont Urgent Care and Medical Complex located near this intersection is probably fairly raccoon resistant, but the homes in the area are not. 

Warrior Drive near Warriors Path State Park -  I only had one customer in this immediate area, but I am going to list it because I could look across the customer’s driveway and see a piece of soffit material that had been pushed out of place by a raccoon.  There was a dirty brown smear on the soffit where the entrance had been used for a long time and the hole was way too big for a squirrel to have made it. 

Watauga Street and Oak Street -  I mention this area because I could stand on my customer’s roof and spot another home where a roof vent a house or two down the hill that had been torn open by raccoons.   Again, like one of the previous examples, the hole was huge and an unmistakable raccoon entrance to the trained eye.  My customer’s home was better than 1500 feet from the nearest stream shown on a map, which is a long way.  The stream was small and didn’t have a name, but it flowed into much larger Reedy Creek.  

Neighbors with Raccoon Problems

If your neighbor had raccoon in the attic problems, watch out because you may be next.  After all, that momma raccoon has just generated a new litter of little momma raccoons that will be looking for a new place to live next year.   Not only that, but I suspect that there may be some sort of imprinting process going on early in the life of the raccoon where a young female raccoon learns what a “good den site” looks like.   I don’t have clear evidence of this, but raccoons stay with the female up until fall or even early winter learning the terrain and life skills.  I can’t imagine that finding a good den site wouldn’t be on the list of things to be handed down to the next generation. 

Accidental Raccoon Evictions

You don’t necessarily need to wait till this year’s kits mature and show up in your attic.  Sometimes the momma raccoon will be spooked out of her den site.   For instance, if the homeowner goes into the attic to check out the noises that they have been hearing they may spook momma into moving her litter.  If this happens, she will be looking for the nearest home to move into, and if you are close by, you may get the “joy” of having her in your attic.

I suspect that this has happened before when I have inspected attics.   I can remember a customer just this year that I had in Johnson City just south of ETSU where this happened.  I looked up between the rafters of this lady’s attic to see the back side of a raccoon.   After my visit, the customer reported that all the attic noises stopped.   I hope that momma raccoon decided to go for a natural den site, but I think that the odds were good that she went for another attic.   I believe that attics are superior den sites because they are warmer and already stuffed with superior nest material (insulation).

Neighbors Who Feed Raccoons

I met a man in Bristol once who loved raccoons.  He fed them dog food on his back porch.  I told him that this was a bad idea. However, he did had lots of good stories about things they did.   They used to get the dog’s ball and climb up onto his roof and drop it and let it roll off.  He had a metal roof and you could hear the ball as it “dong dong donged” down the roof. 

He didn’t have any “raccoon in the attic” problems himself.  His architecture didn’t have any weak spots for them to get in. (He did have one open the screen door and walk into the bedroom one night.)   His neighbors, however, may have had some issues.   Giving momma all the free food she wants probably helps her bring off extra-large litters and increases the demand for housing.    Plus momma probably doesn’t want to be far from the “grocery store” when she is picking her den site.   Who can blame her?   So, if you know that your neighbor is feeding the raccoons either on purpose or accidentally (trash can or pet bowl) maybe it would be a good idea to have your rooftop raccoon entrances hardened up before something happens.

Neighbors Who Have

You Don’t Have a Raccoon Problem…You Have an Architectural Problem

This is one of my favorite bits of wisdom that I like to leave my customers with.   Momma raccoon is going to do what momma raccoon is going do, but if your rooftop has soft spots where she can push through…guess what.  You are going to be hosting her and her new litter in your attic.   To be straight up, some styles of homes are just weaker than others.  Owners of side by side condos with a dividing fire wall, for instance, rarely call me.  There are no exposed ends on the soffits for the raccoon to pry open because they all terminate into a firewall.  Soffits are the number one entry point for raccoons.

Soffits with vinyl panels are hot with raccoons, especially ones with flappy, loose panels over another roofline.   The underlying roofline is what give momma good footing while she pushes through your flexible soffit panel.  Newer neighborhoods with lots of vinyl siding and soffit panels are a prime target.   Generally speaking, plywood soffits are much harder and nearly impossible for the raccoon to break into unless there has been some water damage and rot to soften things up.  I rarely ever have to get raccoons out of homes with plywood soffits that are in good condition.