Raccoon Removal and Control in Seattle

Raccoon poisoning - Poison is something that should be dis-invented. When it comes to nuisance animals, with the exception of insects, poisoning is almost never the way to go. First of all, when you’re dealing with raccoons, there are no approved poisons on the market. The reason for this is because raccoons are still wild animals even if they are living inside of your home. A rat will live in a home and rarely leave the interior; a raccoon will be outside as much as it will be inside, and poisoning this type of animal might result in poisoning further up the food chain. If destroying an ecosystem isn’t enough of a turnoff for you, poisoning a raccoon inside of the home puts you at risk of having that animal slink down into one of the walls and then die. If you though poisoning would be a “hands free” method of dealing with the pest, you’ll realize what a mistake that was when you have to find the dead body and remove it. The smell from a carcass won’t go away until you physically find and remove the body. Either that, or wait for nature to do its thing which could take months.

How To Get Raccoons Out Of Your Chimney

Raccoons are animals that are particularly well suited to living alongside human beings, and their natural tendencies mean that they will often climb domestic properties when they are in urban or suburban areas. Chimneys without any caps or protection are actually quite attractive places for raccoons to make a nest, especially those who are looking for somewhere warm, dark and safe to raise their young. Once they have made their nest and found your chimney to be a suitable home, there are a number of steps to ensure that you get the raccoons out without damaging the raccoons or your own home.

Don't Light A Fire!

The most important thing of all to remember when you have found out that a raccoon or a family of a mother and cubs are living in your chimney is not to light a fire. Some people may think that this will drive the animals out of the chimney, but in reality it will often quickly take the chimney to an unbearable temperature, and leave the animals unable to move and they will actually cook in the chimney. This is not only a horrible way for the raccoons to die, but it will also leave a terrible smell that will permeate the chimney and the room where the fireplace is.

It is also worth noting that you should avoid opening the damper if you have one in your chimney, as this is likely to cause the animals to come through into your fireplace rather than leaving or being removed through the top of the chimney. If this happens it is best to open all the doors and stay away from the raccoon until it actually leaves your home. You may get a little soot on your carpet, but it is not worth confronting and scaring the animal.

How To Remove The Raccoons From The Chimney

There are a number of different approaches that people can take to actually get the raccoons out of the chimney, and it will be a particularly sensitive situation if there are also baby raccoons living in the chimney. Identifying whether there are baby raccoons in the chimney will usually be a case of listening carefully for a few minutes to hear if there is anything that can be heard. When the mother isn’t there most baby raccoons are likely to chirp and whine, and this should be quite audible in a quiet room.

For individual raccoons that have taken up residence, trapping and removal will usually be the best solution, and traps set on the roof or around the area where the raccoon will come to ground will usually be one good way to catch them. There are many professionals in the field who will actually have especially designed traps to catch raccoons when they are coming out of the chimney. These will generally be a typical cage trap that has been mounted with a mesh funnel leading the animal into the trap.

Dealing with female raccoons that will also have pups in the chimney is slightly different. Most trappers will prefer to remove the babies while the mother is out, and then use the babies as bait to entice the mother into the trap. This means that the whole family can be caught and relocated together.

Protecting Your Chimney From Future Raccoon Visits

Once you have removed all raccoons from the chimney, the most important thing to do is to install a strong metal chimney cap over the chimney that will not prevent the smoke from exiting, but will prevent other raccoons from making their way down your chimney.

This is a professional wildlife removal company based in Seattle Washington. We provide pest control for wild animals only, not extermination of insects. If you have nuisance critters that you need to get rid of, we can humanely take care of the problem.