Raccoon Removal in Acworth, GA

Raccoons in your Acworth home

Acworth gives raccoons several food sources close together. The Allatoona shoreline has crayfish, frogs and mussels. Lake Acworth's parks and picnic areas have trash cans and dropped food. Residential streets have garbage bins and pet bowls left outside. The wooded public land along the shore gives them cover to travel between all of it unseen. A raccoon with that much food nearby doesn't wander off. It stays, and when a female needs a dry place to have her young, the closest attic or crawlspace works.

Homeowners describe the sound the same way: "like there's a dog in the attic." Raccoons are heavy, and they tear their way in. They pull back soffits, lift shingles and push through vents. If you also hear high-pitched chattering, there are probably kits. Getting a raccoon out properly comes down to three things: finding the kits, following Georgia's rabies-vector law, and cleaning up the latrine.

Georgia law: remove, never relocate

Georgia lists the raccoon as a rabies-vector species, along with the skunk, fox, bobcat and coyote. Under O.C.G.A. 27-2-10, a trapped raccoon can't be driven down the road and released somewhere else. The legal outcome is removal. Lots of people assume they can catch one in a rented trap and let it go in the woods by the lake. That's the exact thing the law prohibits, because moving raccoons spreads rabies to new areas. A licensed pro handles the animal legally from start to finish.

Finding the kits first

Raccoon young are born from late winter through spring and can't leave the den on their own for weeks. If the mother is trapped or shut out while they're inside, they die in the attic or wall, and you're left with a dead-animal smell on top of the raccoon problem. Pros use cameras to find the kits in insulation and wall cavities. Generally the mother is removed first and the kits right after, unless the whole family can be taken out together. Nothing gets sealed until the kits are accounted for.

The latrine is the real health problem

Raccoons use the same spot as a toilet over and over. In an attic that means a pile of droppings soaking into the insulation and staining the drywall below. Raccoon droppings can carry Baylisascaris roundworm, whose eggs survive a long time and are dangerous if people breathe them in or swallow them. So the job continues after the raccoon is gone. The fouled insulation and droppings come out and the area is disinfected. Don't sweep it up yourself.

How Acworth raccoons get in

Raccoons don't need much of a starting gap because they make their own. The common entry points are soffit corners and roof edges they can pull open, gable and roof vents they can push in, uncapped chimneys, and crawlspace ground vents. On lake-area houses the trouble often starts under the deck. A raccoon that sleeps under the deck in summer will climb to the roof once it wants somewhere warmer or needs a nursery. Downtown, the older chimneys and loose fascia on railroad-era houses make it easier still.

Sealing it so a raccoon can't tear it open again

A raccoon will test a repair, so a squirrel-grade patch won't hold. Once the family is out, the pro closes the entry with heavy steel mesh, reinforced flashing and a proper chimney cap, and screens off the space under the deck and the crawlspace vents so there's no starter den nearby. Ask what the warranty covers and get it in writing. The work should last as long as the house.

Cutting off the food near the lake

You can't do anything about the shoreline or the parks, but your own yard is up to you. Keep garbage cans latched or in the garage until pickup, bring pet food in at night, and don't leave grills or coolers with food scraps on the deck or dock. A raccoon that finds nothing to eat at your house won't spend its nights there.