Something is living in my attic. Now what?
The short answer
Do not start with a trap. In Tennessee it is illegal to transport and release live wildlife without a permit, so trap-and-relocate is not a legal option in the first place — and if it is spring or late summer, trapping the adult almost certainly leaves a litter of babies sealed in your ceiling to starve.
What works is eviction plus exclusion: make the space unpleasant, let the animal move its own family out, then close the hole permanently.
First, figure out whether there are babies
This is the whole question, and it decides everything else.
Squirrels in West Tennessee breed twice a year, roughly December through February and again May through June. But the mating window is not the window that matters to you. Gestation runs about 44 days and the young stay in the nest for another ten weeks or so, which puts babies in your ceiling from roughly February into May, and again from July into September.
Raccoons breed mainly in February. Kits are typically born in April and May and are not moving around outside the den until they are eight to ten weeks old, so a raccoon in your attic in June very likely has a family up there.
If you are hearing activity in those stretches, assume babies until proven otherwise. Honestly, assume babies year-round until you have checked.
Listen at the ceiling early morning and around dusk. Chirping, mewling, or a persistent squeaking that does not sound like an adult moving around means a nest. Scratching that moves in a line is an adult travelling; sound that stays in one spot is a nest site.
If there are babies and you seal the entry, you get dead animals in your insulation, an unforgettable smell, flies, and a repair bill considerably larger than the one you were avoiding.
Eviction, not trapping
The goal is to make your attic the worst available option so the mother relocates her own young. She knows where her backup dens are; you do not.
Light. A work light left on in the attic. Dens are dark by definition.
Noise. A radio on a talk station, not music, near the nest area.
Smell. Rags soaked in household ammonia, placed near — not on — the nest. Ammonia fumes in a closed attic are unpleasant for you too: open a vent, do not mix it with anything, and do not leave it where children or pets can reach it.
Use all three together and give it several days. Mothers typically move a litter within a few days, one baby at a time, once the site no longer feels safe.
What not to do: do not use poison, do not smoke them out, do not block the hole while anyone is inside, and do not go up there and grab a nest of babies. A cornered mother raccoon in an enclosed space is a genuinely bad situation, and raccoons are a rabies vector species in Tennessee.
Then close it properly
Once you are confident everyone is out — and the standard test is simple — seal the entry.
Stuff the hole loosely with newspaper and check it for three consecutive days. If the paper stays undisturbed, nobody is going in or out. If it gets pushed out, someone is still living there.
Then repair with quarter-inch galvanized hardware cloth, sheet metal, aluminum flashing or wood. Not expanding foam — foam is a sealant, not a barrier, and a squirrel goes straight through it.
While you are up there, look for the other holes. An animal that got into your attic found a weak point, and there is usually more than one — soffit gaps, ridge vents, rotted fascia, the gap where the roofline meets a lower roof. Overhanging branches within eight to ten feet of the roof are a highway; trim them.
When to hire someone
If the animal is in a wall cavity you cannot reach, if it is a bat colony, if there are babies you cannot locate, or if you simply are not going up there — hire a licensed operator. In Tennessee, professional nuisance wildlife work is done by permitted Animal Damage Control operators. TWRA recommends getting more than one estimate.
Ask specifically what they do about babies. A company whose answer is "we trap and remove" is not answering the question. The one you want will say they check for a nest, reunite babies with the mother, and warranty the exclusion work.
Worth knowing before you hire: TWRA permits these operators but does not regulate their pricing or their practices. Complaints go to the Better Business Bureau or the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance's Consumer Affairs Division. Nobody at the state is checking whether they looked for babies — which is why you have to ask.
Bats are their own category. TWRA requires an operator to get agency approval before excluding a bat colony, and part of that approval is reporting whether young are present. In practice that rules out most of the summer — flightless pups are in the roost through roughly mid-August.
Orphaned babies
If you end up with babies and no mother — she was trapped, hit by a car, or the eviction went sideways — that is when a rehabber comes in. Keep them warm, contained, dark and quiet, give them nothing to eat or drink, and text 901-340-6534.
Every single squirrel and raccoon season, a meaningful share of the orphans we take in were made by well-intentioned attic work.
Who we are
Out of the Woods Wildlife Rescue & Rehab is a wildlife rehabilitation nonprofit in Memphis, permitted by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. We do not do removal work, but we would rather talk you through an eviction for free than take in the litter afterward. Text 901-340-6534.
Sources: TWRA Wildlife Damage Control, eastern gray squirrel and raccoon pages. Wisconsin Humane Society, wildlife in the attic. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, evicting animals from buildings.
We are wildlife rehabilitators, not lawyers. This is general information about what we see and what the agencies publish; TWRA is the authority on the law.