How Do You Get Rid of Raccoons in the Attic Safely?
The safest way to get rid of raccoons in an attic is to install a one-way exclusion door over their entry point after manually removing any baby raccoons by hand. This allows the adult raccoon to exit the attic to search for food, forcing her to relocate her babies to an alternate den without being harmed.
Follow these critical steps to ensure the process is humane and permanent:
- Locate the entry point: Inspect the roof (soffits, vents, and shingle intersections) to find where they broke in.
- Perform an attic sweep: During spring, you must climb into the attic to check the nest for babies.
- Install proper exclusion hardware: Mount a spring-loaded one-way door over the main entrance and seal all secondary vulnerabilities with heavy-gauge galvanized steel mesh.
- Reunion and repair: Place the babies in a heated incubator box outside so the mother can safely relocate them.
Why DIY Raccoon Removal is Dangerous (and Illegal in Ontario)
Many homeowners attempt to solve the problem by throwing mothballs into the attic, setting up a live trap on the roof, or simply patching the hole while the raccoon is out foraging.
Never seal a hole without a one-way door.
If you trap a mother raccoon outside while her babies are still in the attic, she will tear through your shingles, chew through wood, and destroy your eaves trying to get back to them. If she cannot get back in, the babies will die inside your walls, creating a horrific odor and a severe biohazard.
Furthermore, under the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, it is illegal to trap and relocate a raccoon more than 1 kilometer from where it was caught. Doing so drastically reduces its chance of survival and spreads diseases like rabies. Humane, on-site exclusion is the only legally compliant method.
