Maybe you got a chuckle out of the Allstate commercial where Mayhem is a raccoon living in an attic. You know, the one where Mayhem says, “I’m a raccoon and this time in your attic has been the best week of my raccoon life”. It’s a funny commercial, but there is nothing funny when a raccoon or any other animal makes it into your attic or crawl space.
It doesn’t take long before substantial damages take place. When we inspect a crawl space or attic that has had a raccoon infestation, we typically find some pretty serious problems. Their little paws are more like hands and they can use them to pull down insulation to bed in, detach air ducts to heat the space and even worse, start having babies. All of things combine for a significant level of contamination that really needs to be cleaned up.
We are now entering the time of year where these types of problems with raccoon’s are fairly common. We also see a lot of problems with opossum and even a few skunks as well. A typical crawl space that has been infested with wildlife (attics can be infested as well, but are far less common) can cost well over a thousand dollars to eradicate and do a crawl space restoration. However, these problems can be avoided all together with just a little effort.
Anything the size of a cat or bigger is going to have a hard time getting into your crawl space unless you make it kind of easy for them. Probably 90% of the time, they will get in through a damaged foundation vent screen that is just sitting wide open. This can be caused by a careless cable guy that punches the screen out to run wire, an opening for air conditioning wires or a screen that has just rotted out over time. Regardless of how it was caused, simply by doing a walk around your home, you will usually be able to clearly see if you have an entry point. You might need to make more of an effort to look at screens that are partially hidden under a deck or other structure, but be sure to do so.
If you do have an open screen and suspect that you may have some kind of wildlife living under your home, you probably do not want to try and tackle this on your own unless you know what you are doing. Some animals can be very aggressive, especially if they have young. You are better served by calling a pest control company. Here is a Portland, Oregon pest control company.
Once you have the critters out, it is time to assess the damages. We can help you with that by scheduling a free inspection. We will let you know the extent of the damages in your crawl space or attic and give you a price on how much it would cost to get it fixed.