It took a lot of manpower to clean, disinfect and deodorize the cabin after raccoons ransacked it.
She sounded nearly frantic over the phone, “We’ve tried to clean it up, but I…well, I think we might just have to burn the cabin down!”
“What?”
“Our family cabin at Oakley…raccoons have destroyed it…you wouldn’t believe the mess….I don’t know if anything can save it now.”
I talked to her for quite a while and was able to put the story together. She is part of a large family that has a cabin in the Oakley, Utah area, near Park City, Utah. The area is not easily accessible during the winter and no one had been there for several months. What they found when the opened the door was so bad they just stood there stunned for a while—ring-tailed vandals had broken in sometime late in the previous fall and spent the winter. The animals were gone now, so she didn’t exactly need raccoon removal, but she did need removal of raccoon memories and some measures taken to make sure this wouldn’t happen again.
In addition, the raccoons had made the place so welcoming that a positive infestation of Deer Mice was underway. The place was so full of raccoon and Deer Mouse excrement and urine and destroyed furniture (all the stuffing pulled out) and broken dishes and torn up clothing and ripped out rugs…in all my years in the raccoon removal business this is one of the worst scenes I have witnessed.
I told the homeowner that we could help, but it would take a few days, a lot of man power and a large dumpster to complete this unusual raccoon removal.
It took seven people in protective gear to clean and disinfect the cabin. When we were done there was a full dumpster of all the items that could not be salvaged and the interior smelled and looked like it was ready for company.
In order to make sure we wouldn’t be back again next year for another round of raccoon removal we also addressed some problems with the exterior of the cabin. We did maintenance and repair to soffits, roofs and windows. Then we cleared away foliage and debris that provided cover for all these unwanted guests to sneak in. We pruned trees, trimmed shrubs and bushes and mowed long grass.
This is an example of complete raccoon removal (not to mention the mice, which we also dealt with). The cabin did need a lot of work, but it didn’t need burning down. The owners we so very pleased with the results that the family has used the cabin more this year than they had for sometime. They know it is clean and ready for use—and not being used by party-time raccoons and their friends. I love it when raccoon removal has such a happy ending.
Nationwide Animal Cleanup & Decontamination Services: 1-888-488-7720
