If you suspect that you have raccoons in your attic, you may wonder why the chose your house instead of your neighbor’s. No, it’s not because they love you and long to be near you. As neighborhoods claim more and more of their natural habitat, raccoons will continue to take up residence with people.

There are lots of reasons raccoons end up in attics:

Access to food is a big driver for raccoons.

If your home features bird feeders, garbage cans, gardens, lawn grubs, compost piles, pet food, or other food sources that a raccoon can access, then you have basically laid out a welcome mat for the masked critters.

Raccoons can squeeze through holes about four inches in diameter.

If there are any openings on the exterior of your home that are at least that large, raccoons are likely to get in. That’s also plenty big to allow many other unwanted guests to enter, so keep the mice and birds out too by fixing those holes.

Raccoons are very strong, and have been known to rip right through shingles and wooden roof material to access an attic.

They are also extremely agile climbers and can scale seemingly smooth siding. In other words, if a raccoon really wants to get into your attic, she will.

Female raccoons most often sneak into attics in search of a safe space where she can birth and raise her babies.

Male raccoons are known to kill baby raccoons, so the survival of her babies rests on her ability to hide them. In fact, a female raccoon with pups is the most common scenario we see with attic-dwelling raccoons, especially in the springtime.

Attics make ideal homes for raccoons!

They provide a warm, dry, and safe place for raccoons to build a home. With insulation, wallpaper, and any other materials stored in the attic, raccoons can find plenty of material up there to shred for bedding.

Unfortunately, raccoons will quickly make a tremendous mess in any attic they enter. Urine and feces create quite a stink, but that’s just the start. That excrement often contains diseases, and some raccoons also carry rabies. Plus, if a raccoon dies in your attic, it will create a whole new level of stench in your home.

As raccoons bed down on top of your insulation, they will compact the material over time, which reduces the effectiveness of the insulation. Raccoons have also been known to tear apart insulation around ventilation systems, and can actually get inside your ducts. At that point, they can travel all over your home, making noises and leaving droppings wherever they go.

If you suspect that you have unwanted guests squatting in your attic, contact North Fulton Pest Solutions for fast and professional wildlife removal services. Our highly trained technicians, who are licensed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, will remove the raccoons and their messes from your attic, and also help you locate and seal any possible entry points. This will help prevent future recurrences of raccoons in your attic.

Click for more information about how we can help remove raccoons in your attic.