Raccoon Removal in Buford, GA

Raccoons in your Buford home

Raccoons have done well out of Buford's growth. Every new restaurant and store near the Mall of Georgia comes with a dumpster enclosure, and raccoons are strong, clever and patient enough to work the lids and bags behind them night after night. Well-fed raccoons raise bigger litters, and they need somewhere to raise them. The new apartment communities and subdivisions next to the retail pads offer soffits, roof edges and chimney chases close by, and in the old downtown, chimneys and loose fascia on older homes are just as inviting.

A raccoon in the attic is hard to miss — owners describe it as sounding "like a dog in the attic," and if there are babies you may hear a high chattering. It's usually a female that tore her way in to have kits somewhere dry. That's what makes the job delicate: there are young to find, Georgia law to follow for a rabies-vector species, and a latrine to clean up. Here's how the licensed Gwinnett County pro handles it.

Georgia law: they can't be moved

Georgia lists the raccoon as a rabies-vector species, along with skunks, foxes, bobcats and coyotes. Under O.C.G.A. 27-2-10, a trapped raccoon can't simply be driven out to the country and let go — the legal outcome is removal, not relocation. Moving raccoons spreads rabies and distemper to new areas, which is why the rule exists. A homeowner who traps one is left holding an animal they can't legally release, which is one more reason to bring in a licensed pro from the start.

Finding the kits before sealing anything

Georgia raccoons usually have their young from late winter into spring, often three to five kits tucked deep in insulation or a wall cavity where you can't see them. Pros commonly use cameras to locate them. If the mother is shut out with kits still inside, the young die there — and in an apartment, a dead litter in a shared ceiling becomes everybody's problem. The rule is simple: confirm whether there are kits, remove the whole family, and only then close the entry.

The latrine and the roundworm

Raccoons pick one spot in the attic as a toilet and use it over and over. That leaves soaked, flattened insulation and stained ceilings — and a health risk, because raccoon feces can carry Baylisascaris roundworm, whose eggs are tough, long-lasting and dangerous to people. The latrine has to be removed and the area sanitized properly. That said, not every raccoon job needs a full attic of new insulation; ask your pro to show you what's actually contaminated.

Dumpsters you can't control, a house you can

If you live near the retail hub, you can't lock the shopping center's trash. What you can control is your own side: secure trash cans, bring pet food inside, don't leave birdseed piled up, and close off the space under decks, porches and stairs. Then the seal on the building does the rest. Raccoons will keep visiting as long as the dumpsters are full, so the goal is to make sure there is nowhere on your property for them to move in.

How removal and repair are done

The pro inspects the roof and attic to find the torn opening and check for kits. Depending on the situation, the mother is trapped first and the kits removed by hand, or the family is cleared together so nobody is left behind. Once the space is empty, the hole gets a raccoon-strength repair — heavy-gauge metal, reinforced flashing, and a proper chimney cap where needed — because a raccoon that ripped its way in once will test the patch. Then the latrine is cleaned out.

Apartments and long shared rooflines

Many of Buford's new apartment buildings run long continuous roofs over a row of units, and a raccoon that tears one soffit may be living over the neighbor's bedroom, not yours. That's why a good job looks at the whole building's roofline, not just the unit that called. Renters should loop in property management early, since the repair is on the building itself. Patching one spot on a shared roof usually just moves the raccoon down the line.