How to Repel Raccoons – 7 steps
Below is how to repel raccoons? A raccoon is probably one of the most tenacious and clever pests that boasts a wide variety of athletic skills. 
Raccoons can jump, climb, run, or swim with ease, and they have an unparalleled ability to break into trashcans near your home.
Since they are omnivores, raccoons will eat anything they can get their dirty little hands on and this has made them a menace especially in suburban areas.
How to Repel Raccoons
Yards and gardens are their perfect hangout spot and sometimes they can decide to move into your basement or attic especially when looking for a safe place to raise their kids.
Raccoons may be nice to look at from far but you don’t want them getting anywhere near your home. They will steal your food, spread illnesses, and if you run into them, they can scratch you up and leave you with painful injuries.
Step 1: Identify their areas of damage
First, you need to find out where raccoons are gaining entry into your home or compound. Knowing where the raccoon spends most of its time when at your house and identifying the damage it’s causing will help you determine the best way to repel them. Common raccoon activities include:
- – raiding trashcans outside your house.
- – eating your veggies.
- – attacking your bird feeders.
- – living under the porch.
- – invading the attic.
- – invading the basement.
- – digging holes in the yard.
Step 2: choose the right repelling techniques
Raccoons display high levels of persistence and ingenuity that can be alarming when you’re trying to deter them. However, there are various ways you discourage raccoons from making your home or yard their home:
a) Protect your trash – raccoons love trash bins, so you’ll need multiple repelling strategies in this area.
Always lock your trashcans or secure non-locking trashcans with cinder blocks or bungee cords to prevent raccoons from opening them. Double-bag waste meat to reduce the odor that attracts raccoons to your trashcans.
b) Clean up – raccoons thrive in yards dirty and untidy yards with plenty of places to hide. To prevent this, always keep your lawn mowed and prune any overgrown shrubs.
c) Seal entry points – seal the spaces around the decks and bases of sheds that raccoons could use to gain entry into your home. Seal all the entry points to the chimneys, eaves or attics with hardware cloth or chicken wire to keep raccoons out.
d) Fence your garden – installing a fence can help protect your home from raccoons, but since they are excellent climbers, you will need a really tall fence or an electric fence to keep them out. Use a two-wire electric fence, with the wires 6 and 12 inches above the ground.
e) Use floodlights – raccoons hate light and having floodlights lighting up your yard can discourage raccoons from coming near your home. Even better, you can install motion-activated floodlights to stop raccoons in their tracks when they get too close.
f) Use motion-activated sprinklers – you can also install some motion-activated water sprinklers that blast raccoons with water when they get too close.
g) Use chocolate – scatter some chocolate bars outside your home. The raccoons will love eating the chocolate but since it’s toxic to them, it will make them sick. After this, the raccoons may mark your home as a no go zone.
h) Use a repellent – there are various types of raccoon repellents you can use based on the places the raccoons are frequenting. Most of these repellents contain capsaicin which is a spicy ingredient extracted from cayenne peppers.
Liquid repellents are great for surface protection against raccoons in areas like garbage cans, bird feeders, plants, hard surfaces, and the roof. You will need to respray regularly as the repellent wears off.
Step 3: Remove all attractants
It’s difficult to repel raccoons if you still have attractants like food, water, and shelter. Keep your yard clean and never let your trashcans fill up. Remember to wash the cans periodically to get rid of odors that attract raccoons.
Close any fence gaps and fix broken vents and screens to keep raccoons out. Remove any water sources outside your home and remember to clean up bird seed and pet food that could attract raccoons.
Raccoons are nocturnal in nature, wandering out in the wee hours to search for food. Related: Do Moles Have Eyes?
Conclusion
Granular repellents are great for perimeter protection and creating a barrier around areas like the gardens, raccoon dens, flower beds, barns, sheds, attics, crawl spaces, and other raccoon pathways. They work best where there are flat surfaces and they last longer than liquid repellents.
