What's Digging Up Your Lawn at Night? Grubs, Skunks and Raccoons in Ontario

Quick answer: If your Ontario lawn is being torn up overnight in September or October, something is eating the grubs under it. Sod peeled back in loose sheets means raccoons. Dozens of small cone-shaped holes means skunks. Turf that lifts like a loose carpet with no animal damage at all means the grubs themselves. Removing the animal does nothing — they come back until the grub population under the grass is gone. And if the digging is around one hole that insects are flying in and out of, stop: that is a ground-nesting yellowjacket nest, not a mammal.

You mowed on Saturday. By Monday morning there are holes, loose turf and dirt scattered across the front lawn like someone went at it with a hand rake. Nothing was there the night before.

This is one of the most common calls we take across Barrie, Simcoe County and the GTA between late August and freeze-up, and almost everyone has the same instinct: get rid of the animal. That instinct is backwards. The animal is a symptom — and reading the damage correctly also tells you whether you have a nuisance or something that can genuinely hurt someone.

Read the damage pattern first

Before you treat anything, walk the lawn in daylight and look at the shape of the damage. The three causes leave three different signatures.

Sod flipped over in sheets or long strips — raccoons. Raccoons have dexterous front paws and peel turf back the way you would roll up a rug, often leaving the flap still attached along one edge. Damage concentrates in patches a foot or two across and recurs in the same area for several nights running. Look for five-toed, hand-like tracks in soft soil at the edge.

Many small conical holes, 3 to 5 cm across — skunks. Skunks dig with their front claws and punch down rather than peel across, so the lawn looks stippled with little divots. Each hole is minor; there may be dozens, spread more evenly than raccoon damage.

Turf that lifts with no resistance and no animal sign — the grubs themselves. Grab a handful of grass in a damaged patch and pull gently. If it rolls back with almost no root holding it, the roots are already eaten. Grub-damaged turf feels spongy underfoot and browns off in irregular patches that do not respond to watering.

Cut a 30 cm square of sod on three sides and fold it back. Count what is in the top few centimetres of soil: C-shaped, cream-coloured larvae with brown heads and six visible legs. A handful per square foot is normal and harmless. Five or more European chafer grubs, or roughly ten or more Japanese beetle grubs, per square foot is where turf starts failing — and where a skunk or raccoon decides the digging is worth the effort.

Why this is happening right now

Japanese beetles and European chafers — the two species behind most lawn grub damage in southern Ontario — lay eggs in turf during mid-summer. Those eggs hatch into larvae that spend late summer and fall feeding on grass roots just below the surface. September and early October are their heaviest feeding weeks of the year. They are big, they are shallow, and they are directly under the sod.

Which is exactly what a skunk or raccoon wants going into winter. Both are packing on fat reserves before the cold, and a lawn with a heavy grub load is a high-protein meal requiring no hunting skill at all. They come back every night for as long as the food lasts.

Once the soil cools the grubs burrow deeper and the digging stops on its own — which is why homeowners conclude that whatever they tried in late October “worked.” It didn’t. The grubs overwintered, fed briefly in spring, and the cycle restarts. That is why a lawn dug up last fall gets dug up again this one.

Our Japanese beetle emergence alert covers the adult side of the same life cycle — the beetles chewing your roses in July are the parents of the grubs wrecking your lawn in September — and our pest library beetle pages cover identification.

The danger case: when it isn’t a mammal at all

Rule this out before you do anything else.

If the disturbed area centres on a single hole — roughly the diameter of a loonie, often at the base of a slope, in a dry bank, or beside a walkway — with insects flying in and out in a steady line, that is a ground-nesting yellowjacket colony. By late September an Ontario ground nest can hold thousands of workers, and colonies are at their most defensive of the year right now.

Do not mow over it, pour anything down it, or stand near it to watch. Ground nests are the most common cause of multiple-sting incidents we attend, because the trigger is usually a mower or string trimmer passing over the entrance and the colony comes out all at once. People and pets get stung badly before they have covered ten metres.

We cover how to locate and confirm one safely in our guide to ground-nesting yellowjackets in Ontario lawns, and the yellowjacket profile in our pest library has identification photos. Professional wasp and nest removal is $247 per nest at standard access; if the nest needs extension-ladder or roof access, that is quoted before any work starts. Every service begins with a $95 inspection, credited in full when you book the treatment.

Confusingly, skunks also dig up yellowjacket nests — they are one of the few predators willing to take the stings. So a torn-open ground nest with skunk tracks around it is entirely possible, and it is still a nest until it is confirmed dead.

What actually stops the digging

Treat the food source, not the animal. This is the part most homeowners get wrong. Trapping and removing a skunk from a lawn that still has a heavy grub load simply creates a vacancy. Another animal finds the same food within days. Ontario’s rules reinforce this: under the province’s wildlife legislation, an animal that is live-trapped must be released within one kilometre of where it was captured — so “relocation” usually means the same animal, or its neighbour, is back within the week. Ontario’s own guidance on preventing and managing conflicts with wildlife says the same thing in plainer terms: remove what is attracting the animal.

Know what you are allowed to apply. Ontario restricts the cosmetic use of many lawn pesticides under the Pesticides Act, and grub products are among the most misunderstood categories. Some lower-risk and biological options remain available to homeowners — beneficial nematodes are the usual route — but timing is everything: nematodes applied to dry soil, or outside the window when grubs are feeding near the surface, do essentially nothing. Check Ontario’s pesticide regulations before buying anything at a garden centre.

Make the lawn a worse place to lay eggs next summer. Deep, infrequent watering; mowing at 7–8 cm rather than scalping; overseeding thin areas in early fall. A dense, deep-rooted lawn tolerates more grubs before it shows damage and is less attractive to egg-laying females in July.

Repair now, not in spring. Press flipped sod back down and water it in the same day and much of it will re-root. Left flapping for a week it dries out and dies, and you are buying sod next May.

Where a pest control company fits

Be honest about which problem you have. If it is purely turf damage from grubs with no animal involvement, a lawn care company is the right call — that is agronomy, not pest control, and we will tell you so.

Where we belong is threefold. If the digging animal is also denning on your property — under a deck, shed, porch or hot tub pad — that is a wildlife exclusion job, and a fall den becomes a spring family. If there is a ground nest in the middle of it, that is an urgent safety job. And if the insects driving the wider problem cycle through your property year after year, that is the thing a single visit will never fix.

That last point is the one worth sitting with. Our General Insect Control starts at $395 for exterior treatment, or $475 for interior and exterior — a sensible entry point when you have a problem right now, and it carries a 60-day guarantee. But the reason most of our Barrie and GTA clients end up on the Insect Control plan at $845 per year is arithmetic: one season of grub-driven lawn destruction plus the sod to repair it, or one emergency wasp call at the wrong moment, routinely costs more than a year of scheduled protection that stops the cycle before it starts.

See the full breakdown on our plans and pricing page, or get a real number for your property in about a minute with our pest diagnostic tool. In Simcoe County, our Barrie pest control team handles this exact call every fall; across the GTA, start with residential pest control. For the denning side, see our wildlife removal service. Or call (705) 302-1887 and describe the damage pattern — nine times out of ten we can tell you what it is on the phone.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if it’s skunks or raccoons digging my lawn? Look at the shape. Raccoons peel sod back in sheets or rolls, using their front paws like hands. Skunks punch small cone-shaped holes 3 to 5 cm wide, usually many of them. Both are after the same thing: grubs.

Will the digging stop on its own? Usually yes — once soil temperatures drop and the grubs move deeper, typically late October or November in southern Ontario. But it stops because the food became unreachable, not because the problem was solved. Do nothing and expect a repeat next fall.

Is it worth trapping the animal? Rarely. Ontario’s wildlife rules require live-trapped animals to be released within one kilometre of capture, so the same animal often returns — and another will find an untreated lawn regardless. Exclusion matters when the animal is denning on your property, not when it is only feeding.

Can I just put down grub killer from the hardware store? Ontario restricts the cosmetic use of many lawn pesticides, so homeowner options here are narrower than American advice online suggests. Beneficial nematodes are the common permitted route, and only work applied to moist soil while grubs feed near the surface.

How much does it cost to deal with the pest side of this? Every service starts with a $95 inspection, credited in full when you book the treatment. Wasp and nest removal is $247 per nest at standard access. General insect control starts at $395 exterior, or $475 interior and exterior, with a 60-day guarantee. The Insect Control annual plan is $845 per year. Wildlife exclusion is quoted after the inspection, because decks, sheds and porches all differ.