Raccoons are clever, dexterous, and willing to eat almost anything. Around a home they tip garbage cans, raid gardens, and tear up lawns, and once a family dens under a porch they are hard to discourage. The fix is a sequence of steps that removes what attracts them and seals what lets them in, and the sequence matters as much as the effort.
The plan has five parts: secure your garbage, remove food sources, open up the landscape, seal entry points, and call a professional when a family has already moved in. The same perimeter checks that stop raccoons also stop smaller intruders, so the carpenter ant identification and removal steps apply to the same cracks and gaps.
Remove What Attracts Raccoons in the First Place
The number one attractant is garbage. A typical can lid is no match for a raccoon: the animal opens lids with its paws and, when that fails, knocks the whole can over. Before you know it, you are waking up to a driveway full of ripped bags and smelly kitchen waste.
Tighten Up Garbage Storage
- Hold lids down with bungee cords or heavy cinder blocks.
- Buy cans built to resist raccoons, with locking lids and reinforced bodies.
- Put cans out on collection morning instead of the night before.
- Store cans in a shed or garage when you have the space.
Inexpensive bungee systems hold most lids in place, and raccoon-resistant cans are now common at hardware stores. Either approach beats the nightly ritual of picking up spilled trash.
Clear Food Sources and Dense Cover
Walk the perimeter and look for anything edible: pet food and water bowls left out, overripe vegetables in the garden, fallen fruit under trees, and bird feeders within jumping distance of a roof or railing. Each one is a reason for a raccoon to keep coming back.
Overgrown vegetation works against you twice. It shelters raccoons on their nightly rounds and hides the food you missed, so the smart removal strategies used for invasive shrubs such as buckthorn apply to any dense growth around the house: cut it back, dig out the roots, and keep the area open.
Make the Yard Feel Open and Exposed
Raccoons prefer to move under cover, and they do not like being exposed in open space. A yard with trimmed bushes, short grass, and clear sight lines is simply less attractive to an animal that hunts at night.
Trim, Mow, and Open Up the Landscape
- Trim large bushes so the lower branches sit well above ground level.
- Remove brush piles and stacked debris that provide daytime shelter.
- Keep the lawn mowed short across the whole property.
- Thin dense plantings along fences and property lines.
Use Light to Break the Nightly Habit
Motion-sensitive lighting around likely entry areas startles raccoons and sends them looking elsewhere. Aim lights at the garbage storage area, garden gates, and porch corners, the spots they check first. A detailed raccoon removal guide at The Spruce covers these deterrents and the order to try them in before a problem gets out of hand.
Seal Entry Points Before Raccoons Find Them
A family of raccoons will sometimes take up residence in a home, under a porch, or in a remote corner of a shed. Prevention means checking every possible entrance and closing the gaps, because any opening of 4 or 5 inches is enough for a raccoon to squeeze through.
Check the Usual Entry Points
- Porch skirts and deck framing where they meet the ground.
- Garage and shed doors, including worn weatherstripping.
- Basement windows and crawl space vents.
- Attic vents, chimneys, and low-hanging eaves.
- Gaps where utility lines and pipes enter the house.
The Four-Inch Rule
Measure before you seal. Any gap of 4 to 5 inches is enough for a raccoon to squeeze through, so treat even small openings as entrances. A raccoon can also enlarge a gap by chewing, which is why hardware cloth and metal flashing beat wood filler as permanent repairs.
Wait Out Active Dens Before Sealing
If raccoons are already living in a space, they are most likely raising a litter of youngsters. Seal nothing until the young are old enough to leave, which usually takes several weeks. Once the brood moves out on its own, seal the hole immediately so they, or others, cannot return.
Sealing also cuts off the moisture and debris that bring smaller problems indoors. Damp crawl spaces and overwatered beds breed the pests that find their way inside, and effective ways to get rid of plant gnats start with the same idea: remove the wet organic matter they feed on, then close the routes in.
| Entry Point | What to Check | How to Seal |
|---|---|---|
| Porch and deck | Skirt gaps where framing meets grade | Lattice or metal flashing fixed below grade |
| Garage and shed | Door edges and worn weatherstripping | New weatherstripping and door sweeps |
| Crawl space and basement | Vents and window wells | Heavy-gauge screening and vent covers |
| Attic and chimney | Roof vents and uncapped flues | Chimney caps and screened roof vents |
| Utility lines | Gaps around pipes and cables | Expanding foam or steel wool packed tight |
Protect Gardens and Lawns From Digging Damage
Gardens draw raccoons twice: the produce is edible, and the soil is full of grubs and insects worth digging for. A lawn torn up in patches overnight is usually a raccoon working a grub population, not a mole or a dog.
Treat the Grub Problem at the Source
Raccoons dig where the food is. Managing the grub population in the lawn removes the reason to dig, and a healthy turf recovers faster from the occasional visit. Lawn treatments that target grubs in late summer break the cycle before the fall digging season.
Keep Garden Plants Healthy and Protected
Healthy plants survive animal pressure better and recover faster. Pick ripe produce promptly, remove fallen fruit, and fence or net beds at night during the peak season. Pest management overlaps across the yard: gardens that stay strong resist insects such as aphids, and aphid control and prevention practices are part of the same upkeep that limits animal damage.
Know When to Call a Professional
When a raccoon problem gets truly out of hand, the best move is to call a professional or your local animal control. Many states do not allow homeowners to trap and remove animals themselves, and a mistake can mean injury to the animal, the handler, or both.
What a Removal Professional Does
Wildlife removal specialists use a mix of live trapping and exclusion, and they know the legal and humane requirements in your area. This Old House’s guide to getting rid of raccoons walks through when do-it-yourself methods stop working and what a professional will actually do on site.
- Inspect the property and find every den site and entrance.
- Set live traps or one-way exclusion doors at the active points.
- Remove any trapped animals and relocate them per local rules.
- Seal all openings and install permanent vent covers.
- Schedule a follow-up visit to confirm the animals have not returned.
What Exclusion Involves
Exclusion means sealing the den after the animals leave, then installing one-way doors or vents so any animal still inside can exit but not re-enter. It is the permanent fix. Trapping alone leaves the entrance open for the next family, and the problem comes back within a season.
Avoid the Common Mistakes
- Do not seal a hole while a litter is still inside.
- Do not use poison; it is illegal in many areas and kills pets and scavengers.
- Do not handle a raccoon; they can bite and carry disease.
- Do not feed them, even once, to try to win their trust.
Stay Consistent So They Stay Away
Raccoons are creatures of habit. A property that offers no food, no cover, and no entrance stops being worth the visit, but only if the routine continues. Let the bushes grow back or the cans sit out overnight and the animals will test the perimeter again within a week.
Keep Up the Yard Work Year Round
Yard upkeep is the backbone of the routine. A healthy lawn tolerates the occasional digging better and keeps the soil from staying wet, and the clover removal methods that clear a lawn without damaging grass are the kind of steady work that keeps a yard from sliding into neglect.
Persistence applies to every pest on the property. Gardeners fighting slugs use the same playbook: remove the habitat, manage the moisture, and stay consistent until the population gives up, and the slug control methods that work in a garden work on the property scale too. Raccoons respond to exactly the same approach, and the house, yard, and garden all stay calmer for it.