Here, we’re going to be discussing how not to handle raccoon poop. Also, we’ll be making mention ways to prevent raccoons from coming around your property.
One of the common problems people face with raccoon presence is their poop which they litter around your home.
This is quite gross as well as dangerous to handle yourself. You’ll need to avoid direct contact among other things.
Raccoon Poop Disease
Having raccoon poop around your property exposes you to health risks.
Baylisascaris infection is caused by a roundworm found in raccoons. Now the danger here is that this infection can easily spread to humans as well as pets such as dogs.
Raccoon poop is likely to harbor this parasitic infection and needs to be done away with in the best way possible.
Cleaning or clearing raccoon poop should be done with extreme caution due to the risks posed.
What Happens If You Touch Raccoon Poop?
The roundworm Baysisascaris Procyonis can be transferred from raccoon poop to humans in several ways. This includes inhalation of raccoon eggs from dry poop and also ingesting contaminated food items.
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What Are the Health Implications of Raccoon Poop?
Having entered the human body, roundworm eggs are hatched into larvae.
At this stage, they spread across the body and result in a variety of severe illnesses. Such illnesses include blindness, nausea, loss of muscle control, liver enlargement, and loss of coordination.
All these results from turning a blind eye to raccoon activity around your property. You’ll need to take urgent action to ensure these pests find your surroundings unsuitable.
Also, their feces will need to be carefully cleared and disposed of.
Where To Find Raccoon Poop In Yard
Raccoons will poop in just about anywhere they find suitable.
Such locations may include your garage, woodpiles, haylofts, surfaces of fallen logs, elevated tree forks, or large rocks. Because they feed on seeds among other things, you’re likely to find these in their poop.
You don’t need to try to find raccoon poop around your property.
The foul odor that results from their poop will permeate your surroundings. The problem that these feces present is that they contaminate surfaces as well as other materials.
Urgent action is needed to contain this problem.
Your Home Could Be A Latrine!
One of the unpleasant realities you’ll have to face is the likelihood of your home serving as a latrine for raccoons.
These pests will normally pick out an area to deposit their feces on old ones. You’re likely to have more than one raccoon around your home because they’re social animals.
This creates an even bigger problem as the communal latrine is quite large. The bigger the problem, the more risks posed by their droppings. This needs to be resolved as fast as possible.
Why Am I Seeing Raccoon Poop Around My Home?
Whenever you begin to find raccoon poop scattered around your home, you should know that your environment is attractive or suitable for them. Raccoons are attracted to certain things that may be in ample supply.
Attractions include food, garbage, bird feeders, woodpiles, garden beds, open spaces, the fish pond as well as shed/garage. Others include chicken coops, dog houses, fire pits, and trees. All these serve as attractions for raccoons.
They’re more likely to turn up when these are present.
Cleaning Raccoon Poop
The process of cleaning a raccoon poop isn’t one to be done haphazardly.
Caution must be exercised to avoid the inhalation or ingestion of roundworm eggs. When faced with a latrine situation, you’ll need to take two major actions; prevention and cleaning.
Without taking preventive action to stop raccoons from hanging around your home, they’ll always poop around your home. Preventive action should be taken alongside a thorough cleaning of the poop area.
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Preventive Action
This involves specific steps to keep or discourage raccoons out of your property.
You want to make your surroundings unsuitable. As long as these pests remain, their poop will be found around your home. As such, you’ll need to know what they eat.
Raccoons aren’t so choosy when it comes to what they eat. These pests will feed on a variety of stuff like clams, frogs, snails, crayfish, and vegetables. Others include nuts, eggs, fruits, and insects. These are found in ample supply around homes.
You’ll need to begin by removing any food source you can find around your home. Simply ways to do this include taking in pet food and water when not home, frequently clearing your yard of falling tree fruits, and also installing motion-sensor sprinklers to scare raccoons.
Additional ways to keep raccoons out include securing trash can lids, sealing off all access points to your food or grain storage, and tightly sealing all possible food sources.
Shutting them out of your home will involve a close inspection of your home’s perimeter.
There should be no open spaces for raccoons to breach as they’ll end up in your crawlspaces or attics. Are there wood piles lying around your home? You might want to have them removed as far away as possible.
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Cleaning Raccoon Poop
You can either call a cleaning service for this job if you feel handling it will be difficult. This is done professionally and saves you the stress of having to do it yourself.
However, if you want to do the cleaning yourself, caution must be exercised to avoid picking up roundworm eggs.
To protect yourself from diseases and spores transmission, you’ll need to wear protective clothing. This should include a mask (preferably an N95-rated respirator for enclosed spaces) and disposable gloves. Also put on goggles, rubber boots (disposable) as well as long-sleeved clothing made of thick material.
Try as much as possible to ensure there’s minimal skin exposure to raccoon feces. Having fully protected yourself, it’s time to focus on clearing up raccoon poop. To reduce dust from dried raccoon poop, consider spraying the treatment area with some water.
Using a shovel or similar tool, carefully pick up raccoon poop and dispose of it properly. This can be placed in garbage bags or buried. The same applies to contaminated material. However, picking up raccoon poop isn’t enough.
Roundworm eggs might be littered around.
These eggs are best killed with heat. As such, you might want to boil some hot water and pour it over contaminated areas or surfaces. A propane torch is also an effective treatment for contaminated surfaces.
We’ve been discussing raccoon poop with a focus on the health risks posed. This can be contained by taking the steps outlined above. These include preventive action, cleaning, and treatment.
Also, consider seeking medical attention when any of the symptoms discussed above are noticed.
