Years ago I owned a old house and we discovered a raccoon nesting in the crawlspace. Oh what a mess it made! Raccoon poo and torn up newspaper and pink insulation 8 feet wide. We installed super bright shop lights and made tons of noise to scare it off. It was squeezing in through the tiniest of spaces where an old stairway had been removed and there was a thin gap under the new stairs (took us forever to find it). Then we had to make sure there was no more access. From my research raccoons can come back again and again and will even bust through walls to get back to their nests, so you have to make sure the repair is very secure. You can also buy raccoon traps but you would have to drive them far away and release them (yes it is illegal to kill them), so I would hire a professional. They can be very aggressive and will bite so I wouldn't want to get that close to them myself. Finally, their poo filled nests can be full of nasty bacteria so you need gloves, coveralls and a rebreather when you are cleaning it up. And for all those people that love to feed raccoons catfood, STOP!
