You cannot have raccoon babies without a raccoon mother. This is how the whole thing starts. A pregnant raccoon female will come to your property for specific reasons. These reasons include improperly stored garbage, bird feeders, pets being fed outside, children being fed outside, not cleaning up that outdoor food and leaving it to be rained on which actually intensifies the scent of the food. Do you have a BBQ? Do you clean it after every use? All of this will attract raccoons to your property. They are here for a den and for food. And they do not like to travel far for food from their babies so they will intentionally choose a property that has access to food. If you deal with all of this food on your property and seal away your garbage so no raccoons can get at it then it will dramatically reduce the chance that you will have a raccoon on your property that will try to break into your attic.
Females, however, especially pregnant ones are desperate. After mating with a male the male leaves to find other raccoon babies and kills them. This is how raccoons try to push their own line forward over the lines of other raccoons and the reason the female is hiding in your attic. It is much safer for her babies. This does not mean you should have to deal with a raccoon in your attic destroying everything from ventilation to water pipes, vents and insulation. The raccoon will defecate and urinate in your insulation so severely that you will have to have your entire attic remediated. This can be a dramatically expensive process and can cause serious financial hardship.
If you cannot get onto the roof on your own due to a lack of training and the danger of falling then you can try other humane treatments called Humane Harassment. This involves putting bright strobe lights in the attic, strong smells the raccoon doesn’t like citronella and clove oil as well as the urine of predators like coyotes. You can also play loud music which will do a good job of annoying the raccoon but may not get it to leave. You can also try purchasing a human capture trap that can trap the raccoon while it is hunting outside of the attic. This can be very effective if you use the right bait which for raccoons is some nice stinky rotting meat. Stuffing the entryway with paper will also tell you If the raccoon is still in the attic as it will have to push the paper back out of the hole to leave.
It is very important that if you are live trapping and relocating a raccoon that you take it to the nearest park, they cannot be moved more than a kilometre away from their home turf unless you are a licensed trapper. They must also be moved with their babies or they will find their way back to your home no matter how far you take them. It is also important to know that relocated raccoons do not do well when taken too far. They tend to die in an unknown area and their babies are relying on their mother for survival. If you want to do it the humane way you will have to get a one-way door and then go into the attic and remove the babies yourself. Or you can call a professional wildlife removal company and have them do it all for you, even clean and remediate your attic after the animals are removed.
