Raccoon Removal in Marietta, GA

Raccoons in your Marietta home

Squirrels squeeze in; raccoons demolish their way in. Their front paws are powerful and unsettlingly hand-like, so a raccoon doesn't nibble an opening — it levers, wrenches and rips one, popping shingles, folding back a soffit, prising a vent, or wrestling a chimney cap loose. The historic homes near the Square hand them a prize in their tall masonry flues, which a raccoon treats like a hollow den tree; East Cobb's wooded lots supply the cover and the spilled food that keep them nearby. The breach is never subtle.

And the raccoon in your attic or chimney is, almost without exception, a mother shopping for a dry place to raise young — which is what makes the job its own animal. There are concealed kits to locate, a rabies-vector species the state keeps on a short legal leash, and a soiled latrine to decontaminate. Botch any of the three and the raccoon call mutates into a carcass, a health, or a re-entry problem. Here's how a licensed Cobb County pro keeps that from happening.

Georgia law: removal, not relocation

The raccoon is one of Georgia's rabies-vector species (RVS) — along with skunk, bobcat, fox and coyote — and that classification controls handling. Under the state's rabies-vector statute (O.C.G.A. 27-2-10), a trapped raccoon generally can't be carried off and released somewhere else; the lawful path is removal, not relocation. That's not bureaucracy: relocating raccoons spreads disease and usually kills the displaced animal anyway. Understanding the legal handling and disposition of an RVS is precisely what makes this a licensed pro's job rather than a homeowner's.

Kit season and the dead-animal trap

Most Georgia raccoon litters land between late winter and spring — usually three to five young that spend their first weeks blind, mute and unable to move. That biology is the whole reason raccoon work demands care. Evict or trap the mother, plug the opening, and miss the litter she left behind, and those kits perish in the cavity. What was a contained raccoon job becomes a hunt for a rotting carcass — ceiling odor, blowflies, drywall coming down. So the first question a competent pro answers is whether young are present, and the family leaves together before any opening is closed.

The latrine and the cleanup it forces

Raccoons relieve themselves at a single repeat latrine, and a few weeks of that leaves insulation sodden and packed flat, drywall stained through, and a real biological hazard in place: the droppings can carry Baylisascaris roundworm, whose eggs are tough and genuinely dangerous to people. So the work almost never finishes at "the animal's gone" — it runs on through stripping fouled insulation, sanitizing the latrine, and rebuilding the space, which is the part that makes a raccoon job weightier than any squirrel call.

How raccoons get into Marietta homes

Because raccoons win by force, their entries are wherever a structure can be muscled. On the older homes near the Square that's tall, uncapped masonry chimneys serving as a den-tree substitute, soft fascia and soffit, and weathered roof edges. In East Cobb it's the soffit returns and roof edges of newer builds they can peel and the vents they can bend. The wooded suburb supplies the rest of the draw — cover at the lot lines, plus unsecured garbage, patio pet food and storm-drain routes — and a well-fed raccoon denning under a deck readily moves up to the attic or chimney.

The fix: one-way doors, the kits, then a raccoon-grade seal

Humane raccoon removal begins with an inspection to find the breach and settle whether kits are present. The pro clears the family — often by letting the mother move her own kits, or by lifting them out and reuniting them — instead of trapping the adult and abandoning the young. With the space confirmed empty, the entry is closed, and it must beat a squirrel patch: heavy-gauge steel, reinforced flashing and a proper chimney cap, because an animal that forced its way in will test the repair. Then the latrine and ruined insulation are cleaned. Eviction, a raccoon-strength seal and remediation together are what end it.

Chimneys: a Marietta raccoon favorite

The older housing stock around the Square makes the chimney a recurring raccoon story here. A female reads an open masonry flue as an ideal hollow den and will settle a litter on the smoke shelf, out of sight and reach. Lighting a fire to drive them out is dangerous and can kill kits; reaching in is a bite risk with a rabies-vector animal. A pro removes the female and her kits properly, then fits a code-appropriate chimney cap so the flue stops being an open den — the single most effective step for a chimney-prone older home.