Sunday, March 3, 2013
What happens when you lock a female raccoon from her babies?: A bad day for a Milwaukee Resident!
What happens when you lock a female raccoon from her babies?: A bad day for a Milwaukee Resident!: A few years ago we received a call from a gentleman who lived in Milwaukee regarding a raccoon trying to get into his attic. This ...
A bad day for a Milwaukee Resident!
A few years ago we received a call
from a gentleman who lived in Milwaukee regarding a raccoon trying to get into
his attic. This is a pretty typical call
for Advanced Wildlife Control however this instance there were a few special
things that occurred. First it was around
6:30 am a time in which most raccoons have already hit the sack and are back to
sleep, but this customer told our secretary that the raccoon was still active
on the roof. I thought that the customer
was probably exaggerating. After all
raccoons don’t typically like being out during the day. The problem with this
situation is the customer had baby raccoons in his chimney. He thought it would be a good idea to sneak
up after the mom raccoon had gone and put a chimney cap on the flue. He
invested in a stainless steel chimney cap which I highly recommend in keeping
raccoons out of your chimney. It worked
she tried and tried to get into the chimney, but didn’t succeed. So why then did this gentleman call me at
6:30? Well, the raccoon was indeed on
the outside of his roof when I got there, because she was determined to get her
babies back! She gave up on the chimney and went straight to the asphalt shingles. By the time I had gotten there a crowd of
people where watching the female raccoon frantically try to claw her way into
the attic. I can’t remember ever
witnessing anything like it she didn’t care that people where watching her she
wanted those babies back. I got my
ladder off the truck and attempted to catch her but she bolted at the site of
me walking up to the roof line. She
managed to completely remove all of the two layers of shingle, the roof tar, ice
and water shield and had almost scratched through a completely perfect piece of
wood to get into the attic. She had
tried several different locations and had also completely damaged the ridge
venting on the top of the roof as well. The
damage was incredible considering it was only a 3 hour window from the time he
heard the noise start to the time I got to the home.
He said he had called us earlier in the week, but didn’t want
to spend the money on having and exterminator out to his home. So instead of
having us remove the mom and family of raccoons for a ballpark total of $345.00
which included the chimney cap. In the
end the damage to the roof ended up being close to $15,000.00. The ridge vent had to be removed and
re-installed. The shingles presented a huge problem, because they had two
layers on and the section couldn’t just be replaced. Not to mention the roof was 10 years old and
matching these shingles was almost impossible.
This situation is obviously not the norm, but I think the moral of the
story is doing the project yourself doesn’t always end up being the most cost
effective solution. The only silver
lining is I worked with his insurance agent on the damage and ended up getting
most of the roof paid for!
As raccoon
season sits right around the corner keep Advanced Wildlife and Pest Control in
mind should you have a raccoon trying to break into your home this year. You can check us out at www.advancedwildlifeandpestcontrol.com
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