Generally speaking, the trash you set outside your home isn’t of much interest to other humans. Your garbage will sit there and wait for trash day to roll around, when they will be picked up and hauled off. That is, unless an animal gets to them first. There are two types of critters specifically that tend to be interested in the trash that city-dwellers place out by the curb—rats and raccoons. In this article, we’d like to provide some helpful tips to keep raccoons out of your trash.
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You know that smell that comes from the garbage after it has been sitting around for a couple of days? That smell that reminded you to take the garbage out of the house in the first place? While that might be offensive to you, it’s an alluring aroma to raccoons. These little critters have a strong sense of smell, and the odor put off by your garbage will likely be the first thing to draw them over.
While you can’t necessarily stop your garbage from stinking, you can use quality garbage bags that are designed to contain odor. For particularly pungent loads, consider using two bags to keep that stink as tightly contained as possible.
If you use a standard trash can with a metal lid that you place on top, don’t think that’s going to be enough to keep a raccoon from making a meal of your trash. Simply setting a lid on top is unlikely to hold a raccoon at bay for long. To use this type of trash can effectively, one option is to take a bungee cord and stretch it through the handles and across the lid to add some tension to the closure. Even so, raccoons are crafty, and this approach may not be enough to ensure your trash is raccoon-proof.
When given the option, raccoons would rather work for their food in the dark. They are nocturnal creatures by nature, and they are more comfortable in the darkness than they are in the light. So, as a step toward keeping them away from your garbage, shining some light on the area can help.
Of course, you may not want to keep a light on all night, every night, so consider adding a motion-sensing light that will pop on when an animal creeps into the area. These types of lights are not particularly expensive and are relatively easy to set up. With enough light, the raccoons in your neighborhood may decide to look elsewhere for a meal.
You can purchase animal repellant in liquid form and spray it on and around the trash you are putting out. Quickly spraying down a bag of trash in accordance with the directions on the animal repellant container may be enough to turn raccoons away. Different repellants work in different ways, so you might need to try a few versions before you find one that is particularly effective against the raccoons in your neighborhood.
CITIBIN keeps rodents out.
Perhaps the best thing you can do to keep raccoons out of your trash is to simply lock them out of your trash altogether. By using asturdy trash enclosure, the raccoons won’t have access to the garbage—and they will have to move on to the next target.
If you do opt to use a trash enclosure, be sure to invest in a quality product, like CITIBIN. If you don’t want to deal with raccoon trash troubles any longer, consider ordering a CITIBIN today. Made with quality, durable materials, our trash enclosure does a great job of keeping critters at bay. Just take a look at how it deals with rats:
Thanks to the high-quality materials we use to create each unit and the attention to detail that has gone into the design, we’re sure you will be impressed with the performance of your CITIBIN for years to come!
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