Find the entry, confirm what's inside, and get the raccoon out before anything gets sealed. NYSDEC's guidance is to never permanently seal an entrance without first verifying that all animals are out of the den, and in spring that means checking for young, which are born in April and May. Then the opening gets closed with metal and the attic gets cleaned.
Because there may be kits behind it. NYSDEC notes female raccoons look for den sites in late winter and give birth in April and May, and the young open their eyes about three weeks later and nurse for roughly six weeks before leaving the den. Seal the mother out during that window and the kits die in the insulation, and she tears at the roof, the soffit and the vent trying to get back to them. NYSDEC's test for whether the den is empty is simple: sprinkle twigs, grass or flour at the opening and watch for tracks, and listen. Young raccoons, in NYSDEC's words, often announce their presence with mewing, twittering or crying sounds.
The full walkthrough, including what New York law allows and the spring timing rule, is in our guide How to get rid of raccoons in the attic on Long Island.
Through a one-way door, or on her own after dark. NYSDEC's approach is to block the opening with a temporary cover when raccoons leave for nightly foraging, then make the seal permanent once you've confirmed nobody is inside. A one-way door over the entry does the same thing without you having to be up on the roof at midnight: she leaves, she can't get back in, and the door comes off once the tracks stop. When there are kits, the job is different: they come out by hand and go with the mother, which is why the timing of the call matters. Once the attic is empty, the opening gets closed with hardware cloth or sheet metal, not foam or wood, and the other soft spots on the roof get checked, because a raccoon that lost one entry looks for another.
Rabies, roundworm and a roof. NYSDEC notes rabies is transmitted by the bite and that a rabid raccoon may act aggressively, salivate heavily or drag its hind legs, and that raccoon roundworm infects most New York raccoons, with eggs passed in the droppings that can cause nerve damage if ingested. An attic a raccoon has lived in has droppings in the insulation. Cornering a mother with kits in a crawl-height attic is how people get bitten. Trap it, exclude it and clean it are three different skills, and the cleanup needs a respirator and bagged, removed insulation, not a shop vac.
The attic raccoon call comes in two waves: February and March, when a female is moving in through a rotted fascia board or an uncapped chimney on a Huntington or Smithtown colonial, and April and May, when the homeowner starts hearing the kits over the bedroom. In Massapequa and Levittown it's usually the soffit return or the gable vent. Bobby Bugs removes the animals, installs the one-way door, shows you the entry to close with metal, and the wildlife nesting removal carries a 6-month written guarantee with a free estimate.
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By the time and the weight. Raccoons are nocturnal and heavy: thumping, dragging and slow footsteps after dark, sometimes chattering. Squirrels are daytime animals, fast and light, loudest at dawn and dusk. A hole the size of a softball with muddy paw smears and torn shingles around it is a raccoon.
Eventually, once the kits are old enough to travel, usually by midsummer, but she may come back to the same den next winter, and the insulation stays contaminated. NYSDEC's advice is to remove food and shelter and to close the entry once the den is confirmed empty, not to wait it out.
NYSDEC notes the law allows unlicensed homeowners to destroy raccoons that damage property, but its first advice is to remove the food and shelter that drew them. Handling, relocating and cleaning up after a raccoon that may carry rabies and roundworm is the part most homeowners shouldn't take on, and it's what the wildlife service is for.
Still not sure? Call (516) 509-6001 and we'll tell you what you're dealing with.