Raccoons! UPDATE: We got him!

[Sillygirl]

Or her. We woke up this morning to some thumping so I sent DH down stairs to confront the burgular. Lo and behold, there's an ENORMOUS raccoon in the trap. I'll call the trapper later this morning. The deck is elevated off the back of the house, so he's going to have to carry the whole thing through our living room - oh lord, I hope we don't get fleas.
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Update 2: The trapper came and got the raccoon. He had to carry the trap through the house. but he wrapped the whole thing in a big tarp first, so no fleas or pee in the living room. He says it was a young female, not appearing to be lactating.

I asked what he would be doing with her, and he gave me a weird look, and then said very gently "She's going bye-bye." I'm not two. I said "Oh, you're going to kill her?" matter-of-factly. State law prevents him from releasing raccoons elsewhere - it's an anti-rabies precaution. I am sorry the raccoon has to die. But I heard that thing GROWL in the cage and I am glad she's not on my deck any more.
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At least I think that's what they are. There's a turd that keeps showing up on my deck, right by the door - same place each time. And our trash bins are getting raided. The deck is up high so it's got to be something that climbs. I googled animal scat and I think what this is is a raccoon latrine. They keep coming back to the same place over and over. Oh, and the poop is seething is roundworm eggs which are dangerous and not easy to kill, unless I want to take a blowtorch to my wooden deck.

I called the holistic pest people and they were pretty snippy in informing me there might be babies, so they don't trap except in the winter. Well, pardon my cold, black heart, but I don't care. I am not interested in my toddler picking up a life-threatening parasite or in closing off my deck while the turds mount up. Fortunately I found a good ol' boy trapper through the state wildlife office who is coming out later today to help me.

I blame the neighbors - this was never a problem until they starting leaving out bags of garbage outside of cans, to get strewn all over my yard. I'm gonna be out over $200 for this, pardon the pun, cr@p.

[Laurel]

I feel your pain. We also have an animal (I think it is a possum- but had not thought to google-good idea) that craps in the exact same spot in our yard almost every day! It's driving me crazy!

[tarabenet]

Ugh, Katie! What a mess! I remember a thread here a while back about racoon latrines and the very serious health threat they present. I hate to think about babies being left behind, but when it is acutal human health at stake, it simply has to be done. Sorry you're having to deal with this!

[casey0729]

What is with the allure of the deck? We had a raccoon using our deck for it's personal toilet when we first moved into our house 5 years ago. We ended up rebuilding the deck that summer and DH stained it with some green preservative and it never came back. I don't know if that did the trick or some nice motorist ran over the raccoon for me. Either way, no more poop!

Hope you get rid of yours soon.


KC

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[elizabethkott]

No BTDT, but I vividly remember my father and the racoons...
They kept getting into the trash, so one day my dad decided to get even. He somehow got the hose up to the roof. In the middle of the night, when he heard the racoons getting busy in the trash, he crawled out onto the roof and turned the hose on them.
Granted, they did come back. But it took about 2 weeks.
:)

[madelinesmom]

I don't want to alarm you, but are sure they aren't in your attic? My IL's had a whole family living in their attic and could't trap them b/c they didn't know how many babies and where they were, you might want to call the Extension Service, they should be in the govt. listings, they might be able to give you a recommendation.

BTW... love the use of turd, haven't seen or said that word in years but I might just pull it out b/c my husband is acting like a turd...

Jane
Madeline 1/20/03
Emily 11/29/05
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[Sillygirl]

We haven't heard any noises. We only have a crawlspace, not a true attic. The exterminator had a brief look around. I don't even want to think about it. . .

[psophia17]

We had raccoons in the crawlspace when we first moved to Canada. N was 8mos old at the time, and the sound of the babies whimpering all night sounded exactly like that. It was gross, gross, gross.

Does your attic/crawlspace have a vent? If it's well-sealed, you should be okay, but if it's open (ours was - the vent part had come off at some point) the raccoons will come in.

[Lynnie]

that's how the mamma racoon and all of her babies got in our teeny area between the flat roof and the ceiling - i guess its a crawlspace, but its not big enough for anyone other than a racoon. She was able to gnaw thru and pull apart the soffit and climb a tree, get on the roof, then swing over the awning and into the hole in the soffit.

We first saw the mamma at DS1s birthday party in the beginning of April. Then, you could hear them running and jumping up there, and the babies whimpering.

This is after the exterminator convinced me that we had rats in the crawlspace and charged a ton of $$ to set up all this rat bait and stuff and really freaked me out. (and also said the turds on the roof were from a dog. um, no, a racoon, braintrust.)

Then later the babies would come out and play (and poop) in the backyard.

The trapper finally got them (and released them somewhere far far away) but the house ended up getting infested with fleas.

I spent mother's day two years ago trying to exterminate the house and take the kids out somewhere for the day.

I am sure I shared that experience here !

edited to add: they love gefilte fish if you are going to try to trap them

[Lynnie]

all work at repelling raccoons.

good luck.

[randomkid]

If all else fails, leave out a dirty diaper for that stinkin' varmit! My parents had been having problems with a racoon. Last week, late at night, they heard it out in the yard. My Dad went out and found garbage strewn all over the yard and one of DD's disposables torn to shreds. A day or two later, the next door neighbors found a huge racoon dead in their back yard. The popular theory is that the racoon ate some of the diaper and that gel stuff swelled up in it's belly. So, my parents are very proud to say that DD ridded them of that awful pest!

BTW, how do you know that they are roundworm eggs? Just curious...

[Sillygirl]

I haven't dissected the poop or seen any eggs. Just in my online research it says that roundworm infestation is extremely common in raccoons, so you should assume that the poop has them in large numbers and proceed with extreme caution.

[Lynnie]

congrats !!

if you had gotten fleas, you'd probably know it by now. (such a nightmare)

and if the racoon is a nursing mama, the trapper will be able to tell that too.

When they caught ours, she was nursing. So he had to LET HER GO. and she moved right back into our crawlspace and had learned not to go in the trap. Ah such memories. We did finally humanely catch them all (mama and however many babies) and he took them far far away.

[AddiesMom]

Just a story- Big news in Central MA this week, a racoon stumbled into a supermarket in the middle of the day and attacked a 59 year old store employee, now undergoinng rabies shots. They were able to trap it/destroy it for testing.

When you say "She's going bye-bye"... that might just be a good thing!

[squimp]

I'm glad you got it! Raccoons totally freak me out. They make really weird noises.