Raccoons don’t pick your house at random. They pick the house where dinner is easy. In most of the wildlife calls we take in Mercer and Middlesex counties, the story starts at the curb: bags left out overnight, a can without a locking lid, a bin against the house that gives a raccoon a step up to the roof.
Who’s coming to dinner
Raccoons and skunks are the obvious ones. Less obvious are the mice and rats that work the same bins at ground level, and the yellow jackets that build up around sweet residue in late summer. Once animals learn a food source is reliable, they stay, and that’s when they start looking at your attic, deck and shed as places to live.
Habits that actually work
- Put trash out the morning of pickup, not the night before.
- Use cans with locking or bungee-secured lids.
- Rinse recycling. Sweet residue is a wasp magnet.
- Keep bins away from the house, fences and low roofs.
- Feed pets indoors, or bring bowls in at night.
Already hearing something on the roof at night? That’s a job for exclusion, not a trap. We find the entry point, remove the animal humanely, and seal it so the next one can’t follow.