Jacob Lehman runs Destination Wildlife Control, a Northern Virginia-based wildlife control company that performs emergency service calls, nuisance animal removal, dead animal removal, exclusion services, cleanup services, handyman services, home inspections, termite inspections, and general pest control. Here, he talks about raccoons, a common (and, according to him, the most intelligent!) nuisance animal.
Raccoons are equally at home in chimneys, in the attic, or under the porch or deck. In the spring, chirping sounds in the chimney, attic, or even inside walls, give away the presence of baby raccoons. Even full-grown raccoons don’t need a big space to get in: The space can be as narrow as three inches tall. Keep in mind that none of the county or city animal control agencies in Northern Virginia are allowed by their insurance to go on a roof, under a house, or in the attic, and are therefore unable to correctly place traps to remove the raccoons. Only an agency like Destination Wildlife Control can do that.
Raccoons can dig up your yard. In the fall, many people laying new sod for their house come out the next morning to find their sod rolled back up like little carpets. Raccoons do this as they search for food. Raccoons don’t need a tree to get on the roof either: They are good at climbing on spouts. We at Destination Wildlife Control are able to go where the animals are, remove them, and perform repairs to keep new ones from gaining access later.
We also have the experience to know where to search for raccoon babies: There is an exciting time in mid-February through mid-March when squirrels and raccoons start having little ones. If you see a baby animal wandering around your yard, don’t disturb it. And remember, mother raccoons raise the little ones on their own and don’t let any other animals near them, since males will try to kill the babies in order to mate with the female. I have even had mother raccoons come after me when I took their babies.
Remember: If you have an animal in your living space, it’s an emergency. Wildlife belongs outside. If you have any wildlife in your house, leave it alone, and if it’s in a room, shut it in and put a damp towel under the door. At Destination Wildlife Control, when we receive a call about a nuisance animal, we try to determine over the phone what the animal may be. This helps us choose the equipment we may need on the job. Once we get to your house, we look for clues to the animal’s identity if we have not yet figured it out. Our inspection may take a while because we not only look for the entrance, but also where other animals could possibly get in later. We set traps near the animal’s entrance to lessen the chance of catching a non-target animal and then check the traps every day for about a week. And we don’t want you to have any animals coming to visit you after we are done. So we work hard to find every vulnerable spot in your house. It is up to you to decide which repairs you want us to perform, if there are any to do after we are done with the job. If an animal gets through our repairs during the warranty period (usually three years), we will come back to remove the new animal and perform the new repairs at no expense to you. But, in eight years I have only had two calls where animals beat my repairs — and these were early in my career.
