Ammonia

Raccoons hate the scent of ammonia because it reminds them of the smell of urine. Urine contains high concentrations of ammonia in it. Raccoons do not like being around the smell of urine, because they enjoy staying away from anywhere that urine is present, as they do not really want to eat right by urine. There are several different ways to use this method. Some people like to put it in a sprayer and mist a perimeter around their yard. Some people like to just take some old clothes, rip them up for rags, put ammonia on them, and then throw them out in their yard to form a loose perimeter. One thing to keep in mind is that the scent and presence of ammonia fades away every day it sits in the elements, so you will have to do this fairly often for it to remain effective.

Generic Raccoon “Repellents”

Almost every single chemical deterrent that is on the market today as a “raccoon repellent” essentially comes down to one chemical, naphthalene. If you have heard of naphthalene, or if you have not, it is the compound guilty of giving mothballs their distinct aroma. Essentially, all of these generic deterrents are just mothballs with slight variations added or taken away from them. While they might look and smell potent, they do not work very well on raccoons, as they lose their strength over time.
An important thing to know about naphthalene is that it depends on an animal to smell it for it to keep raccoons away. This might be why mothballs and other raccoon repellents are so ineffective. Many people use them on their lawns, where the wind and other air particles carry the scent away so it is never concentrated. Used inside, naphthalene products are effective, but not when used anywhere that the scent can’t be concentrated.

Hot Pepper Liquid

Raccoons absolutely hate smelling peppers. This is one of the better repellents you can make at home if you are looking to not spend a bunch on store-bought repellent. All you have to do is mix water with any kind of hot pepper seasoning or sauce that you want. Once you have mixed this, you can put it in a spray bottle and spray a perimeter around your yard to try to keep the raccoons out. One of the problems with this mixture is that, like most other repellents, it loses its strength of smell quite quickly, so you would have to redo this process many times in order to keep it effective.