Question
I don't know which past events may be related so I'll just give you the whole story.

Last night and at least one other night in the last month, I have been awake in bed around 4-5am and heard noises coming from the adjoining room. We keep the bedroom door closed, but I can hear scratching and something moving around in that room. Last night it knocked something over. We have put out rat/mouse poison, but it isn't being touched (that we can tell). We also had a box of breakfast bars and a box of protein bars (individually wrapped) in the room that weren't touched.

A couple months ago, we had a raccoon problem around our garbage cans and ended up trapping and relocating the animal. The raccoon made big messes though and would eat anything which makes me think our current problem isn't a raccoon. We've also had mice in the past year (resolved with traps and poison), but I don't think they'd make this much noise. We have also had unidentified holes showing up in our yard over the past year (rats or squirrels?). We do have many large trees on our property.

These rooms are on the second floor of our house. We had light snow last night, and this morning I saw footprints on the roof outside our bedroom dormer. It looks like one animal that went down to the corner of the house and came back up. The footprints are in groupings of four (two small and two large oval shapes just behind) with each grouping about 1-1.5 feet apart as if it hopped.

I also found coarse hairs on the floor in the room in question. They are about 1-2" long and yellow/orange. Several have one end with 1/4"-1/2" that's black in color.

We are renovating a closet that opens onto this room. the closet currently has an opening to the attic and one that goes under the floor/into the wall so I know how it is getting in.

We are moving in two weeks and won't be finishing the renovations before then so I can't easily cut off the access. What can I do to get rid of the animal? We have the large raccoon trap still, but I'm not sure it will work on a small animal.

Answer
Sounds like raccoon to me. But it is tough to tell. Too many unanswered questions such as the size of the foot, any smudges on the side of the house? Size of the hole?

I suggest you call my office on Monday, 402-472-8961  8:30-5:00 CST so we can talk it through. One warning though, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER seal off a hole unless you are swear to God certain it isn't being used. Raccoons can do a lot of damage if trapped inside or excluded outside of a house.  Details on how to tell if it is being used are also on the site in the inspection area, called a hole test.

Otherwise, you should visit http://icwdm.org  under solutions there will be a link to identification.  follow the steps carefully. It will ask a series of questions that will help narrow the possibilities.

As for relocating raccoons. Hope it was legal in your state. Many states forbid it for good reason. Details on why relocation is not a good idea is also on the site under control methods.

Raccoon size traps can work on small animals like gray and fox squirrels provided it is the right type and set properly. We can talk you through that too.