Raccoon Removal in Lawrenceville, GA

Raccoons in your Lawrenceville home

Raccoons follow water. The creeks that wind through Lawrenceville, with their strips of protected woods on each bank, give them a sheltered path right through the middle of dense neighborhoods. At night a raccoon walks that path and checks the houses along it: open garbage cans, pet food on the porch, the space under a deck, a crawlspace door that doesn't latch, a chimney with no cap. The houses that back onto the creek get checked every night.

When a raccoon gets into an attic, people know. It sounds like a dog walking around in the ceiling, and if there are young you may hear a high chattering. The animal up there is usually a female who wants a dry, safe place to raise kits. That makes the job more than catching one animal: the kits have to be found, Georgia law limits what can be done with a raccoon, and the mess she leaves has to be cleaned up properly.

Georgia law: removal, not relocation

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 across the county and let go. The legal path is removal. Relocating raccoons spreads disease and puts the animal into another raccoon's territory. A licensed operator knows how to handle a trapped raccoon within the law, which is a big reason this isn't a job for a borrowed trap.

Finding the kits

In Georgia, raccoons usually have their young from late winter into spring. The kits stay hidden and can't leave on their own for weeks. Pros often use cameras to see where the nest is and how many kits there are. The usual approach is to remove the mother and then hand-remove the kits, unless the whole family can be taken out together. If the mother is trapped and the hole is closed without finding the kits, they die in the attic, and the call turns into a dead-animal job.

The latrine is the health risk

Raccoons pick one spot and use it as a toilet over and over. In an attic that means a pile of droppings soaking into the insulation and staining the ceiling below. Raccoon feces can carry Baylisascaris roundworm, whose eggs are hardy and can make people seriously ill. Don't sweep it up yourself. Cleaning the latrine and removing soiled insulation is a normal part of a raccoon job, though full insulation replacement isn't always needed, so ask what actually has to come out.

Why houses by the creek get raccoons

A raccoon living along a Lawrenceville creek has cover all day and food all night. The houses next to it supply the rest: trash, pet bowls, bird feeders and dark spaces under decks and porches. Raccoons are strong enough to rip open a roof edge, bend a vent or pull off a loose chimney cap, so a house doesn't need a big hole to be at risk. Locking down food and blocking the space under the deck matter as much as the attic seal.

The seal has to hold a raccoon

Once the attic is confirmed empty, the opening gets a repair built for an animal that will push on it. That means heavy metal, not screen, a real chimney cap, and solid flashing at the roof edge. Other weak spots on the roofline get the same treatment, because a raccoon that can't get back in the old way will try the next one. Then the latrine is cleaned and the area treated.

Raccoons under the deck

A lot of Lawrenceville raccoon calls start with an animal under a deck or shed, especially on lots that back onto the woods. Deal with it early. A female settled under the deck may move up into the attic or chimney when she's ready to have kits. The pro removes the raccoon and any young, then closes off the space under the deck with buried wire so the next raccoon from the creek can't move in.