When your Nuisance Animal is a Racoon...

Raccoons are found all over the Tampa Bay area in bigger and bigger numbers. As they discover the urban areas, their populations grow when food is more readily and easily available. Because of that it is becoming more common to encounter a raccoon near or inside your home.

In urban and other areas where tree dens are lacking, raccoons choose a wide variety of "cavities" including rock and debris piles, attics, crawl spaces beneath mobile homes, culverts and sewer drains.

A raccoon in your attic can cause major damage. They will nest and bring in the food they have scavanged which will collect and rot. They will also defecate and urinate.

The greatest problem with raccoons is disease. Raccoons are known to carry a wide variety of diseases. Most of these are harmless to the raccoon and to people, but a few, such as distemper, can kill raccoons when their populations get too dense. These diseases also can infect pets that are not vaccinated. Rabies is another such disease. The risk of rabies is small (less than 1 out of 200 raccoons in the wild have been exposed to rabies), but the risk should never be taken lightly. Raccoons are wild animals and should never be treated as pets.