Are raccoons in your warehouse in Memphis TN?  Raccoons are the cutest thieves you will ever see, but they will bring trouble with them. It is common for raccoons to sneak into a warehouse to check out what is going on. You may not even know they are inside until it is too late.

Raccoons are very opportunistic animals. Raccoons will be in a warehouse for several reasons. If you leave a door open they take advantage of the opportunity and come right on in. If your warehouse stores ingredients for food, animal feed, or even may even have other animals in it, this can attract them. Raccoons will also decide to come inside because of bad weather or need for shelter.

It helps to look around the outside of your property to see what the surrounding area is like. Wild animals are territorial and will fight for their territory. If there is an overabundance of animals in your area, then raccoons may be looking for a place to live. If there are no trees near the warehouse, they could be looking for a meal or a new hideout.

Raccoons breed in February and March and will be pregnant for about eight weeks. During pregnancy, they will make sure they have a nest to give birth in that is safe and warm. This happens in residential homes quite often and if a warehouse isn’t too loud in a certain area, there too.

A mother raccoon can have an average of three to five pups and give birth in April or May. The babies stay with the mama raccoon until they are weaned between two and four months of age. During that time, she will go out during the day to gather food while the pups are asleep. She will come back during the night to feed and protect them.

Once they are old enough, she will show them how to forage for food and protect themselves while they sneak around for food. What better place than one filled with people who leave at night so they can try to get their hands on any leftovers.

When you have an entire family of raccoons in your warehouse the damage they cause can add up very quickly. Raccoons can climb anything because of their hand-like paws. They can grab onto crevices and can tear through just about any openings. Raccoons are extremely smart animals and will quickly learn how to open and get into something with just a few tries.

This will make quite a mess in a warehouse full of boxes or other machines that the raccoons can damage or tear into. A major health issue with raccoons is that they carry rabies and roundworms, which can affect people and other animals. Rabies is transmitted through saliva and blood and is easily transferred to humans and domestic animals, as well as being in the local wildlife.

Roundworms are in raccoon intestines; when the roundworms lay eggs, they are passed into the fecal droppings. If you come into contact with raccoon feces unknowingly, you can transfer the bacteria to yourself. This transfer of bacteria creates a disease called Baylisascaris and can cause nausea, tiredness, loss of coordination, loss of muscle control, lack of attention to people and their surroundings, blindness, and even coma.

Other diseases may come from wildlife like salmonella, canine distemper, and raccoon parvoviral enteritis. Any of these diseases can be very harmful if you come into contact with urine, fecal droppings, saliva, or blood from a raccoon, so please make sure you clean up with appropriate sanitation equipment to kill all the bacteria in the area a raccoon may have had access.

If you have heard noises or seen anything to indicate there may be a raccoon in your warehouse or trying to make a way in, it may be time to give Apex Wildlife Control a call. We will be happy to come by and verify if you have a raccoon problem.

If you do have raccoons and you have seen them, we offer exterior trapping services that can start the day we come out! Exterior trapping services refers to live cage trapping. Typically we will need to see the property, but warehouses are known to have easy access for animals to go in and out of the big open doorways.

Since we cannot stop anyone from leaving a door open, we set multiple live cages in the areas where the raccoons are most active. Our technicians put the bait in all the cages to attract the raccoons and we trap for seven days. There is no limit to how many animals we can catch. We come out a total of three times in the 7-day trapping period.

Once we trap the raccoons, we relocate them 25 miles away from your property so they cannot find their way back to you. We are almost always successful; however, we cannot force an animal into a trap and therefore are not able to guarantee our trapping work. The bait can help entice the raccoons into the cages, but because they are so smart, they may try to avoid it at first.