If Auntie Fashion is going to help me with my garden, then she first needs to help me with my raging raccoon problem. They are crazy here in the T-Dot. One winter, we had them living in the walls behind our bedroom. They had babies, we could hear the babies and the mother making their weird little mehmehmeh sounds all night long. One morning I woke up early to one trying to scratch his way into our bedroom. It was scary. We’ve since figured out how they got in and fixed the holes. Now we wake up to them trying to rip the soffets off our eaves to get back into our attic.
I’d say that a good 12% of Dom’s life is spent trying to win the battle vs. the raccoons. He wakes up in the night and pounds the wall with his fist to try to get them to go away. He occasionally stomps around the house, hair and beard askew, with a 2×4 in his hand, completely crazed with raccoon frustration. It’s both a hatred, and a respect for the enemy- because frankly, they’re winning.
Right now, they are digging up our backyard, huge sections of it are completely torn apart. It’s illegal to do anything to them in Toronto. They have no natural predators. We’ve thought about sprinkling cayenne pepper around the yard- but then read that if it gets in an animals eyes, it can be so painful that they will try scratch their own eyes out. Dom was like, “good”. But we have cats that we love and we wouldn’t want to do that to them. Or the squirrerls, or birds.
Dom just phoned, and the conversation went something like this:
Dom, “did you let the cats out?”
Me: “uh, yeah.”
Dom: “where are they?”
Me, looking out the window, ” I don’t know, why?”
Dom, ominously: “Because the raccoons dug a tunnel last night.”
Me: “Gasp! Really, to where!!?”
Dom: “My ass! Haha! April fools!”
Haha. Funny. You got me- but the thing is, I wouldn’t put it past them! I am going to come home one day and they are going to be sleeping in our bed, wearing our underwear and using our bank cards. Their names will probably be on the mortgage! They are evolving at a rapid pace. They’ve figured out how to open the green bin- who knows what they’re capable of next?
So first things first, what are we supposed to do about the raccoons?
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The secret to dealing with raccoons is to move back to Winnipeg.
Oh god. Don’t even get me started on wanting to move back to Winnipeg. I’ve been banned from speaking of it.
OMG! That pic of the raccoon is awesome!
good luck with your pests, i hope you can gain control of them… and maybe take over the world? lol
How about Moose Jaw, then? It’s raccoon free, too.
I heard a rumour that Moose Jaw is forecasted to have the best fashion week the world has ever seen coming up sometime in the near future. Perhaps if I was able to show, or at least have a float in the fashion week parade. . .
[...] grow some in my garden this year. I don’t trust my soil, though. I have suspicions that the raccoons have been poisoining it with strychnine in order to speed up their take over of our lives. My soil [...]
There’s tons of very effective ways to contend with determined raccoons without harming them. A bucket of ammonia in the attic, for example, will clear out about any mammal living there.
I’d suggest putting the gigs of information on the web to your service. I dug up a couple links I think you’ll like:
http://www.ibabuzz.com/garybogue/2007/05/16/got-raccoon-problems-2/
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4892/problems.html (seems to be partly down atm)
I have more experience with raccoons than most anyone, but I’m no writer. If you would like to ask me specific questions, feel free, but I check my web-mail infrequently, so anticipate a slow response.
You’re far from alone in your struggle. It IS possible to outsmart a raccoon!