Raccoons find easy access to Spring Lake, NJ home

A piece of flashing on the roof of a home in Spring Lake, NJ was unsecured with nothing holding it down. This poor craftsmanship offered a raccoon easy access through the roof into the attic. All the animal had to do was all to lift the loose flashing with its dexterous paw to gain access inside the home. the house. There was no need to carve out a hole using his claws or teeth. With this home, the unsecured flashing was the equivalent of an unlocked door for the raccoon to use to enter and exit the attic. Raccoons and other wildlife are intelligent, resourceful creatures that will find and exploit weaknesses in a home’s structure to gain entry. Often, we find wildlife infestations that have taken hold because of poor maintenance. For example, weakened and water-damaged fascia, soffits, or shingles provides access for raccoons or squirrels to chew and claw their way into the attic. In other cases, such as with this home, poor craftsmanship — roof flashing not properly secured to the home — was the culprit. Certainly, wildlife infestations occur in homes that are well-built and well-maintained, but they occur with far less frequency. 

To trap the raccoon, I set up a “one-way” device that I wrapped with hardware cloth to make sure the animal could not get out any other way. With a one-way device, the raccoon is able to exit the attic, but once the door shuts, he can’t return. We set up these exclusion devices so that the animal has no other routes he can use to leave the structure. The finished set-up was two baited traps next to the one-way. When the raccoon leaves the one-way and is wandering around, I expect that, between the two baited traps, the raccoon will find the food too tempting and will get caught. Once trapped, we will safely and humanely relocate the animal away from the premises.