Do raccoons jump high enough into houses or over fences?

Need raccoon removal in your hometown? We service over 500 USA locations! Click here to hire us in your town and check prices - updated for year 2020.

Raccoons are really good climbers, despite how heavy and clumsy they look. About as big as a small to medium sized dog, or your humble house cat, they are actually very good at swimming, running and jumping too. When you combine all of those talents, you can understand how this animal can make for such a formidable opponent.



They have five toes on their paws, and they have sharp claws on the each of these too. That’s what helps them to make their way up walls and other surfaces. If it has a texture that the animal can cling on to with those sharp nails and very dexterous paws, it will scamper up it with relative ease. This means trees, fences, textured walls, and a lot more.

It is often food that encourages them to get acrobatic, hailing their bodies over wooden fences, and then along the top of them in a bid to break into your home, or just over the side of them to get to the goodies that your land has to offer. Scavengers just like the raccoon will generally follow wherever the smell of food takes them. If that’s up and over, so be it.

Vegetable gardens, trash cans, chicken coops, fish ponds, flower beds, and even your lawn will be attacked. Raccoons eat a great number of insects and other bugs that you will commonly come across, and they are prolific in most gardens, particularly if there are flowers or greenery of some sort.

You can protect yourself against these jumping rogue raccoons, and one of the first things you should do is have a good look around to see if there are any food items left around. These are what the raccoons and other wild critters can smell, and it is that food that encourages them to come closer. Make sure you don’t leave food out for pets, and definitely don’t feed the animals. This will encourage them to come back time and time again, and before you know it, they’l literally be living alongside you. As in, in your home!

Raccoons are cute creatures to look at, but that’s all they’re good for - looking at. You won’t want to get too close, and you certainly won’t want to invite these creatures into your garden, let alone your home. The more you feed them, the less fear they have for mankind, and this can be even more dangerous. When that raccoon wants more food and you don’t have, it might be your arm or hands it takes a chunk out of. Not only that, when raccoons are “artificially fed” (by humans), they can congregate in those specific areas, even bringing along their raccoon pals for the ride. It won't be long before you have a mass of raccoons visiting your back door, and then a bunch of other animals right after - rats, mice, bats, squirrels, opossums, snakes, skunks, and more. We’re sure your neighbors won’t be happy when animals have invaded their homes because of your feeding actions too.

When animals such as the raccoon come close to humans, it’s a cute moment. It’s not something that happens very often, and there’s a good reason for that. Raccoons can be dangerous. They can inflict nasty injuries, not just to other animals and your pets, but maybe even to you, your kids, your spouse, and other people too. Don’t be fooled by the cute mask of these furry beasts. Instead, make lots of noise and scare them away. You will not want these in your garden for very long.

For more information, you may want to click on one of these guides that I wrote:
How much does raccoon removal cost? - get the lowdown on prices.
How to get rid of raccoons - my main raccoon removal info guide.
Example raccoon trapping photographs - get do-it-yourself ideas.
Raccoon job blog - learn from great examples of raccoon jobs I've done.
raccoons in the attic