With their black button eyes, raccoons look out into the world as if they couldn't muddy any water. Nevertheless, the cute fellows have it all under their belts. When they get into the house from the garden, the furry predators cause considerable damage. This guide gets to the heart of how you can scare away omnivores without harming them.
How do you get rid of raccoons from the garden?
To drive raccoons out of the garden, you should secure garbage cans, avoid leftover food, remove climbing aids from the house and create a minimum distance of 100 cm from trees and bushes. This will keep the robbers off your property without getting hurt.
Excrement as an early warning system
Once a gang of raccoons has settled in your attic, the vandals are difficult to drive away. Therefore, when working in the garden, pay attention to visible signs of the presence of the robbers. Scratches on trees or overturned, looted garbage cans are the first symptoms. A sure sign of raccoons in the garden is their excrement. These are similar to the feces of small dogs and are always deposited in the same place in latrines.
Garbage bins and compost heaps attract raccoons
If raccoons have chosen your garden as their territory, the omnivores are looking for food waste. By making these tempting hotspots unattractive to predators, they become discouraged and turn to other regions. This is how it works:
- Equip garbage cans with a sturdy lock (€24.00 on Amazon)
- In addition, place the bin in a locked crate between emptying operations
- Do not dispose of leftover food or vegetable waste in the compost
When taking all precautions, please keep in mind that you are confronted with clever, adaptive predators in your garden. Raccoons have long since stopped being deterred from looting by placing heavy stones on the garbage can lid.
Removing climbing aids from the house – this is how it works
As long as raccoons limit themselves to staying in the garden, they do not cause any significant damage. However, the clever climbers are constantly trying to get into the house and into the attic. By defusing possible climbing aids, you protect your home from infestation. How to keep raccoons out of the house:
- Cut back trees adjacent to buildings
- Shorten so that there is a minimum distance of 100 cm
- Wrap tree trunks near the house from a height of 60 cm with 60 cm long metal sleeves
- Cut branches hanging down to the ground to a height of 100 cm
Do not use barbed wire to make trees safe for climbing. As practice has shown, neither raccoons nor martens are deterred by this. In the worst case, the animals are injured, which is not the aim of these measures. However, the furry acrobats are powerless against smooth surfaces.
By the way, with the recommended measures you can kill several birds with one stone. Where a raccoon can't get in, cats, martens, badgers and other nocturnal vandals can't get in either.
Tip
In contrast to other animal garden inhabitants, such as martens, hedgehogs or moles, raccoons do not immediately flee. In the event of a sudden encounter, please do not allow yourself to be tempted to touch the undoubtedly cute raccoon. You are dealing with a predator who can react aggressively and cause painful bite injuries.
