“A raccoon in the attic” is one of my most common calls in the early spring and summer. One question that I answer frequently from my customers is “Can a raccoon fall through my ceiling?”. Raccoons, on the upper end of the scale, weigh about 20lbs. and there are excellent good odds of having more than one. Female raccoons have as many as 7 kits with the average litter being 3-4 babies. If mom and young are all snuggled up on the top side of your ceiling, that is a substantial amount of weight in one spot.
Drop ceilings are the weakest. Drop ceiling tiles are made of a fiber material that looks like shredded cardboard box. These ceilings are fairly fragile and are certainly not made to support weight. I have been handling tiles from a drop ceiling on a ladder and damaged the tiles just by dropping them. If you factor in some water damage weakening the tile…watch out. I have seen drop ceilings survive a raccoon invasion, but a break-through would be on my mind. I had one customer who discovered they had a wildlife problem when they came into work to see a couple of raccoons peering back out of a gap in the ceiling. They were a little panicked. Raccoons have little “hands” and can grasp and are able to lift tiles up if they want to.
Drywall ceilings are somewhat stronger than drop ceilings, but I never trust them when I am inspecting an attic. Their strength is dependent, to a great extent, on the quality of the workmanship that went into installing them. I have seen double-layered drywall with plenty of good screws holding it all up and I have seen drywall that is just barely hanging in place.
Water damage is as big a problem for drywall as it is for drop ceilings. Drywall is a layer of gypsum sandwiched between two layers of thin cardboard. It is relatively stiff when it is dry, but turns to mush when it gets wet. Raccoons don’t necessarily “go to the bathroom” outside. They are not dumping gallons of fluid when they urinate, but it doesn’t help any. They are always a few “calling cards” and pee stains in attics where they are denning. This, along with garden variety water damage, can increase the odds of a fall-through.
If this is your situation, you need to have a plan for getting the raccoons out in the event that a break does occur. Once they fall, inside odds are good that they won’t be able to get back up into the ceiling. The will be panicked and are likely to start to try to tear their way out to escape. At this point you need to be extremely careful. You don’t want to be in the room with a panicked raccoon and get bitten. If you have a raccoon in the attic, it is advisable to have the problem taken care of ASAP. The longer it is up there, the worse the mess will be and the more likely that there could be other problems.