Removing Squirrels / RACCOONS From Your Attic

Squirrels:

If you are are hearing running throughout your soffits in the early morning, and late afternoon you may have a squirrel issue. Squirrels tend to use the soffit areas in your attic to scurry from their nest to the outdoors. Identifying which side or part of the house is experiencing the most activity can help narrow down the best site as well as the entry point.

Placing a live trap in the attic close to the nest site or entry point, is the best way a home owner can try and solve his unwanted squirrel problem. Checking the trap daily will ensure no animals get hurt, or stressed before you have the opportunity to release it (them).

During the spring baby season, squirrels look for warm safe places to have their babies free from the elements and predation, thus making a home attic an ideal spot to build their families. During the fall the squirrels look to store their food cache for winter months when sourcing food is difficult. Ontario winters can be brutally cold and therefore your attic makes a nice warm hotel for the duration. Closing up entry points after the animals have been safely caught and released nearby, will allow you time to mend the entry points.

Squirrels will typically enter through a Davis board that has some rot, or a plastic roof vent they may have chewed through. Roof/soffit intersections such as a dormer can be an easy access point for squirrels as well.
Sealing these areas with heavy guage screen and caulking will give you the best results.
Should you be afraid of heights or timid around live wild animals, the course of action is to call your local professional for onsite assessment, for a permanent and guranteed solution.

Raccoons:

Raccoons much like squirrels, would rather have their babies (kits) in a warm, safe place free from the elements to give their young family the best chance at living through the first stages of adolescence. Coyotes, foxes and birds of prey can easily handle a young raccoon making them quite vulnerable at the early stages.

Raccoons typically enter through a roof vent, gable vent, or roof soffit intersection and chimney. If you suspect this is happing and are hearing what sound like a person waking around your attic in the middle of the night you are probably experiencing a raccoon issue. You may set a live trap, and place a garbage bag so the clever little animals don’t try and take your bait through the side of the cage rather than entering. Raccoons are very smart and if the raccoon has ever entered a trap or cage before, you may not ever be able to catch it this way again.

If you are successful in catching the problem animal and have released it in the closest wooded area, you should address the entry point at your earliest convenience as they will return as soon as night comes. Raccoons typically have a few den sites within a territory and therefore depending on its nightly rummaging, will typically sleep at one of these places a few times a week, and then a few nights perhaps at another.

Closing entry points with wire screen in the 16-17 guage thickness is almost the only way to ensure they will not break back in. Raccoons often defecate and urinate in their living space and therefore can smell where they have been and will continue to try and re enter time and time again.

If you are nervous about handling a live trap or are afraid of heights, you should leave this work to a professional.

Simcoe Muskoka Wildlife Removal has the experience to solve your unwanted animal issue and provide humane guaranteed results that will protect your home and investment for years to come.