Raccoon Removal in Winder, GA

Raccoons in your Winder home

Raccoons do best where water, cover and food sit close together, and Winder has all three. Fort Yargo State Park gives them woods and lake shoreline at the edge of town; the creek bottoms and pasture edges around Barrow County add more cover; and neighborhoods supply garbage cans, pet food and bird feeders. A female looking for a safe place to have kits will use the nearest dry, enclosed space — an attic, a chimney, the crawlspace under an older house near downtown, or the hollow under a new deck along 316.

People describe the sound the same way: like a dog in the attic. If there are kits, you may also hear a high-pitched chattering. Raccoons are strong enough to tear open a soffit or lift a roof vent, so the damage is bigger than a squirrel's, and their droppings carry a parasite that's dangerous to people. Here's how our crew handles a raccoon job.

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 legally be driven somewhere else and turned loose — the lawful path is removal, not relocation. Moving raccoons carries rabies and distemper into new areas, which is exactly what the rule is meant to prevent. A licensed operator knows how a rabies-vector animal has to be handled, and that alone is a good reason not to trap one yourself.

Finding the kits first

Raccoons usually have kits from late winter into spring, and the young stay tucked in insulation or behind framing for weeks. Pros often use cameras to find them before anything is sealed. Removing the mother first is common practice unless the whole family can be taken out together. What you never want is a trapped mother and kits left behind — a few days later that becomes a dead-animal smell in your ceiling.

Crawlspaces in the older part of town

Many older homes near downtown Winder sit on crawlspaces with ground vents and access doors that have rusted, warped or been pushed open over the years. A raccoon will den underneath, and a female will often climb from there into a wall cavity or up to the attic. On these houses, screening the vents and doors with heavy metal matters as much as sealing the roofline.

Latrines and roundworm

Raccoons pick one spot as a latrine and return to it again and again. Their droppings can carry Baylisascaris roundworm, whose eggs survive a long time and can make a person seriously ill if accidentally swallowed. So a raccoon job includes cleaning that area out properly. Not every attic needs all its insulation replaced, though — ask the pro to show you how far the contamination actually reaches.

Removal and a raccoon-proof seal

Once the family is out, the entry is closed with materials a raccoon can't pull apart: heavy-gauge steel mesh, metal flashing and a proper chimney cap. Raccoons test repairs, so a light patch won't hold. The pro also checks the rest of the roofline and foundation for weak spots, since a strong raccoon will try a new opening if the old one is blocked.

Taking away the reasons to stay

Raccoons from the park and the surrounding woods will keep visiting any yard that feeds them. Keep garbage cans latched and in the garage if you can, feed pets indoors, clean up under bird feeders, and close off the space under decks and sheds. Those steps, paired with a sealed house, make your property far less interesting than the one next door.