Raccoon Trapping and Removal

Efficient and Humane Raccoon Trapping and Removal in Illinois

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Helping Homeowners Remove Raccoons and Repair Raccoon Damage Since 1976

When there’s a raccoon in your house, anything can happen. Chewed wires can start fires. Raccoon droppings can cause illness. Damage can be permanent, but it doesn’t have to be.

  • Raccoon proof homes to keep raccoons from entering
  • Humanely trap and remove raccoons
  • Repair the damage that raccoons cause
  • Clean up environmental hazards, contamination, and disease-causing parasites
  • Replace damaged insulation with clean, fresh insulation
  • Install barriers to prevent raccoons from ever coming back
  • Deliver peace of mind

Raccoons have their place in nature, not in your house.

CONTACT ONE OF OUR RACCOON SPECIALISTS TODAY

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What Happens When There’s a Raccoon in My House?

Raccoons tear off shingles, rip open vents, chew through eaves, and enter attics and soffits. Once inside, they destroy insulation with their feces and urine. The damage raccoons cause can make an attic smell terrible, and worse yet, raccoons pose a fire hazard.

It’s important to remove raccoons immediately, before damage becomes widespread and permanent. Our experts are trained to stop raccoons from damaging your home.

CONTACT ONE OF OUR RACCOON SPECIALISTS TODAY

Landmark Pest Management Solves Raccoon Problems

Our courteous expert team will come to your home and solve any wildlife problem that is causing damage to your property or threatening the health and safety of your family and pets.

Knowledgeable Staff

Each of our expert team members undergoes extensive classroom training and in-the-field apprenticeship training before they become individually licensed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to control wildlife.

Scientific Techniques

We are a team of scientists. Our methods are science based and informed by field trials and proprietary innovations. We’ve been perfecting our craft since 1976.

Comprehensive Service

Your raccoon problem doesn’t end when the first raccoon leaves. Structural damage, waste, and hidden entrances can keep them coming back. We work with you until the problem is fully solved by removing the contamination, repairing the damage that they leave behind, and sealing the entry points.

Comprehensive Raccoon Removal and Prevention in Chicagoland

Get them out. Keep them out. Get your life back.

Humane Wildlife Removal

Efficiency combined with humane trapping methods and respect for wildlife.

Get Animals Out

Wildlife Damage Repair

Eliminate health hazards and get life back to normal.

Repair Animal Damage

Proofing and Prevention

Our staff of skilled structural experts install animal-proof products so animals can never enter your home again.

Keep Animals Out

Why Do I Have Raccoons?

In spite of humans’ poor habitat management practices that have resulted in habitat loss and population decline of many animal species, other species of wildlife, like raccoons, have endured and even thrived alongside us.

Raccoons are a species that has thrived in spite of human-driven changes to the landscape. Raccoons have greater population numbers today than they did when covered wagons crossed this area 200 years ago. Fall population estimates for raccoons in the North Shore suburbs around Northbrook, Wilmette, and Lake Forest have reached 99 raccoons per square mile. In short, raccoon overpopulation is probably the cause of most raccoon problems.

Since raccoons are overpopulated and cause most of the wildlife complaints from Illinois homeowners each year, it’s wise to prevent a problem from occurring by installing raccoon-proof products to keep raccoons from entering your home.

Seal Raccoons Out

Approximately 60,000 homeowners in Illinois report nuisance wildlife damage to their homes and properties each year. Raccoons cause most of these complaints. Raccoons tear shingles, rip open roof vents, and damage eaves to gain entry to attics. Having raccoons in the attic for even a short time can result in permanent damage, including a lingering musty smell caused by their urine and feces. Once inside they move the insulation around creating comfy bedding and latrine areas where they deposit their droppings.

Raccoons damage homes and property, but there is an even greater threat to human health linked to Raccoon roundworm, a parasite raccoons carry that can cause blindness, brain damage, and death.

CALL LANDMARK TO EXCLUDE RACCOONS FROM YOUR PROPERTY

Raccoons in Illinois

While many species of wildlife have declined due to habitat loss associated with expansion of human settlements, raccoon populations have increased 20 fold in the past 70 years. Studies have shown that 80 percent of raccoons in the United States reside in urban or suburban (non-rural) areas. In a study of raccoon distribution and concentration among urban, suburban, and rural environments, researchers found that the raccoon population in urban and suburban communities was dramatically higher versus a rural habitat. In the study, raccoon population densities averaged 55 per kilometer in an urban area, 67 per kilometer in a suburban area, and only 9 per kilometer in a rural area. There are more raccoons in cities than there are in rural areas.

Most female raccoons give birth to an average of 3 to 4 young in May or June, but some litters can arrive as late as August. Male raccoons kill young, so females drive them off and raise the young alone. Young raccoons begin accompanying their mothers outdoors to forage and play when they are 6 to 8 weeks old.

Juvenile raccoons practice their hunting skills by catching and eating rodents that are attracted by undigested seeds and berries in the raccoons’ feces. Scientists theorize that these feces-feeding rodents may be easy prey for young raccoons because they become infected by a brain parasite (Baylisascaris procyonis) excreted by raccoons. Because this parasite can also infect humans, raccoons pose a risk to human health and should be controlled and prevented from occupying human-occupied structures.

Raccoon Roundworm

Baylisascaris procyonis (Bp) is a parasitic roundworm that is documented to infect nearly 100 different animal species, including humans. It is commonly referred to as “raccoon roundworm” due to its ubiquity among raccoons, and is of particular interest to epidemiologists due to its zoonotic potential, meaning that the parasite can be transmitted from animals to humans.

Bp is a category of parasite known as neural larval migrans. These are worms that originate in the digestive tract, but migrate throughout the body, ultimately lodging in sensitive organs, such as the brain, eyes and spinal cord.

Raccoon roundworm is of particular interest to public health officials in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, because Chicagoland has higher raccoon populations than the outlying areas of the state. It would surprise many people to learn that the highest populations of raccoons in Illinois are in the metro areas that are densely populated by humans, rather than the less populated forested and rural areas. The large number of raccoons living in close proximity to humans is concerning when it comes to the likelihood that a person will contract raccoon roundworm, because the larger the number of raccoons in an area, the greater the likelihood that humans will come in contact with raccoon feces.

Works Cited

Chris, A. (2006). Raccoon roundworm. Canadian Medical Association Journal , 174, 1410.
Eberhard, M. L., Nace, E. K., Won, K. Y., Punkosdy, G. A., Bishop, H. S., & Johnston, S. P. (2003). Baylisascaris procyonis in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 9, 1636-7.
Gavin, P. J., Kazacos, K. R., & Shulman, S.T. Baylisascariasis. (2005). Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 18, 703-18.
Herriman, R. E., (2010). Baylisascaris procyonis: the little known but very dangerous raccoon roundworm. Journal of Continuing Education Topics & Issues, 12.1, 36.
Murray, W. J., & Kazacos, K. R. (2004). Raccoon roundworm encephalitis. Emerging Infections, 39, 1484-92.
Okulewicz, A., Bunkowska K., (2009). Baylisascaris-a new dangerous zoonosis. Wiad Parazytol, 55, 329-34.
Owen, S. F., Edwards, J. W., Ford, W. M., Crum, J. M., & Wood, P. B. (2004). Raccoon roundworm in raccoons in central West Virginia. Northeastern Naturalists, 11, 137-142.
Page, L. K., Anchor, C., Luy, E., Kron, S., Larson, G., Madsen, L., … Smyser, T. J. (2009). Backyard raccoon latrines and risk for baylisascaris procyonis transmission to humans. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 15, 1530-1.
Page, L. K., Gehrt, S. D., & Robinson, N.P. (2008). Land-use effects on prevalence of raccoon roundworm. Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 44(3),
Raccoon roundworm encephalitis-Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California, 2000. (2002). Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 50, 1153-55.
Page, L. K., Swihart, R. K., & Kazacos, K. R. (2001). Seed preferences and foraging by granivores at raccoon latrines in the transmission dynamics of the raccoon roundworm (Baylisascaris procyonis). Canadian Journal of Zoology, 79, 616-622.
Prange, S., Gerhrt, S. D., Wiggers, E. P. (2004). Influences of anthropogenic resources on raccoon (procyon lotor” movements and spatial distribution. Journal of Mammalogy, 85, 483-90.
Roussere, G. P., Murray, W. J., Raudenbush, C. B., Kutilek, M. J., Levee, D. J., & Kazacos, K. R. (2003). Raccoon Roundworm Eggs near Homes and Risk for Larva Migrans Disease, California Communities. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 9, 1516-22.
Urbanek, R. E., Nielson, C. K., & Wilson, S. E. (2009). Survival of unexploited raccoons on a rural refuge in southern Illinois. Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science, 102.3-4, 217+. Retrieved from
Zeveloff, S.I. (2002). Racoons: a natural history. Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Want To Get Rid of Your Raccoon Problem? Contact the Experts

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