Throughout the year and especially during their birthing season (early spring), female raccoons will break into our customer’s homes in southeastern Wisconsin looking for an area to have their litter. The average litter size is about 4 babies. Although, we have caught and removed litters as large as 9 baby raccoons! The female raccoon is especially wary of humans and other raccoons during her birthing season. One reason they hide in your attic is to avoid the adult male raccoon which would like to kill the babies in order to get the female back into heat. The female raccoons are very aggressive during this time and our very difficult to catch. We strongly recommend not to attempt to catch the female during this time, because more times than not the raccoon will break out of your cage and become even more difficult to catch. In some cases we do catch the male raccoon in the attic as well, because he has tracked down his mate. We remove and relocate him to a new area as well. Our technicians either set cages on the inside of your attic or sometimes on your rooftops.
Our cages are specially designed to not allow the raccoons to damage your roof tops or attic areas once they are caught in our cages.
Raccoons favorite entry point (Attic Vent Fan): If raccoons are living in your attic the first access point that our technicians look for is the attic vent fan. The fan is designed to turn on when your attic searches a certain temperature during the summer months. The fan doesn’t run too often at night when raccoons are active, so it doesn’t disrupt the female’s path in and out of your home. Attic vent fans have a wire screen around them, but this material can be bent and torn off easily by an aggressive female raccoon.
There isn’t any type of attic vent fan that cannot be accessed by a female raccoon. The only way to insure that no raccoons gain access into your attic is to have a technician from our company come out and screen off your attic vent fan from inside your attic! The stainless steel screen that we install will still allow your vent fan to work and is 100% guarantee to stop a raccoon from accessing your attic.
Raccoons and your dormers: Your soffit dormers can also be a favorite access point for female raccoons. The soffits and fascia that are only made of aluminum can be pulled down very easily by a female raccoon looking for a nesting spot. Raccoons have been known to pull down the aluminum and then chew threw the wood to gain access into your attics! If a female raccoon is determined to get into your home there is very little that you can do to stop it from happening.
Raccoons entering by your vents: It is much more likely that a raccoon will enter your vent fan than a vent, however with that said, raccoons will break into vents to gain access into your home as well. Vents offer very little resistance to a female raccoon that is looking to gain entry. Often when the raccoons use this method they rip the vent completely off of the roof. This leaves our customers with two huge problems; a family of raccoons in your attic and an access point for water to leak into your home. This is a big reason if raccoons have gained access to your attic why you should schedule an appointment with Advanced Wildlife Control Inc. immediately. If the raccoons have left a hole in your vent or even your ridge vent that can lead to huge problems with water. RACCOON DAMAGE IS OFTEN COVERED UNDER YOUR HOMEOWNERS POLICY. PLEASE LOOK FOR MORE ON THAT IN THE SECTION “HOME OWNERS COVERAGE”.
Raccoons entering through roof top shingles/wood shakes: Female raccoons can tear straight threw a roof top in a matter of couple hours. They can tear off the shingles, tar, and chew threw the plywood underneath and gain access into the attic. We don’t believe any roof top is completely safe from a pregnant female raccoon looking for an area to have her babies.
Raccoons in my chimney: Believe it or not, raccoons love to have their babies inside your chimney on top of the damper doors! Mom raccoon can climb up and down your chimney walls and will take her raccoon babies with her by placing them in her mouth. Advanced Wildlife Control is one of the only companies in Southeastern Wisconsin that can remove the entire family of raccoons the same day. Each situation is different and some unique chimneys may require us to set cages. If that is the case, we have a specially designed cage that fits down you flue that will trap mom inside your chimney and allow us to remove the babies at the bottom of your chimney.
Our company handles over 50 jobs like this every year. We even carry stainless steel, lifetime guarantee chimney caps in our trucks to insure that raccoons will never access your chimneys again. Advanced Wildlife Control will remove raccoons from your chimney anywhere in Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, and Milwaukee Counties and almost always can get there the same day you call!