Category Archives: Raccoons

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Raccoons

Raccoon Removal

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My son didn’t figure raccoon removal into his business plan, poor thing, but it’s turned into a valuable business lesson for him.

When my son was ten years old, he decided he wanted to do something every year to make extra money.  He’s a saver, not a spender, and I have the feeling he’s going to be a great business man some day.  So, when he came to me five years ago and told me his business plan, my husband and I had to support it.  His big plan was to “lease” our garden plot from us in June, plant pumpkin seeds, grow pumpkins as big as he could, and then sell them in the fall for the Halloween and Thanksgiving seasons.  My husband and I quizzed him about all the ins-and-outs of his plan, but he really had thought of just about everything.  I had been a lazy gardener that first year, so I had no problem leasing the garden plot to him in exchange for extra chores.  He purchased pumpkin seeds using some of the money he’d earned mowing lawns in the spring.  He researched the best pumpkin growing practices for our area.  And, he spent the summer and early fall helping his cash crop to grow.

I hate to admit it, but my husband and I were surprised at how vigilant he was.  He stuck it out, worked really hard, and had a fairly good-sized crop by the beginning of October.   He worked up some fliers, handed them out to his classmates in school, stuck them on neighbor’s doors, and sold every last pumpkin that year.  He saved every dime from that first crop, with the exception of purchasing better seeds for the following year.

Every year since then, he’s made a profit, which he’s saved, and he’s developed quite a reputation.  He doesn’t even talk about buying a car when he turns sixteen, or spend it on hobbies, but he’s currently talking about his next business venture.  He hasn’t settled on one, yet, but this year’s fight with the raccoons have pushed him away from pumpkins and towards something a little less troublesome.

His pumpkin patch has gotten bigger over the years as we’ve dedicated more and  more yard space to his business.  He walked out to work in it the other day and found, to his dismay, some animal had invaded and eaten some of his pumpkins.  He set up watch one night, and discovered he needed to remove raccoons from his pumpkin patch.

There were two raccoons, who waddled and scuttled furtively into the patch, then used their sharp claws and teeth to rip into a couple of pumpkins.  They kept scooping pumpkin flesh up into their mouths until my son ran them off.

Since then, he’s tried several raccoon removal techniques, but nothing’s worked for him.  He’s finally come to the conclusion that he needs to get a raccoon removal service.  Fortunately, one call to Allstate Animal Control got an expert out to his patch, who removed the raccoons.  Also, fortunately, the cost was much lower than my son had expected.  He’s decided raccoon removal is just part of the cost of doing business.  He’s also decided that maybe it’s time to try growing Christmas trees on the plot, instead of pumpkins.

Raccoons

Raccoon in the Crawlspace

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raccoon traps too small

When you see the words “raccoon in the crawlspace” written out in black and white, on an email, it seems like a straightforward problem that can be solved by a nuisance wildlife removal service, like Allstate Animal Control.  But, when you’re standing in the shower, late at night, and you hear scratching and shuffling coming from the other side of the shower wall, it feels completely different.  You feel vulnerable, and it’s spooky, and childish fears make you remember horror movies in which shower scenes are never good, and it takes a while for the adult in you to kick in and realize you probably just have a raccoon in the crawlspace.

 

That’s what happened to a distant relative of mine.  She and her husband live in a nice condominium in a settled neighborhood.  They don’t exactly live in the boondocks – it’s not a heavily forested area, nor is it surrounded by farms.  Neither the previous owners, nor their neighbors had complained of wild animals in the area.  So, a raccoon in the crawlspace was the furthest thing from her mind as she prepared for her shower one late evening.

 

It had been an extremely long day.  She’s a junior high school teacher, and she had a couple of rough classes followed by parent/teacher conferences that lasted late into the evening.  Of course, she wasn’t done with her day when she got home, because she had papers to grade and a test to work up.  It was normal when her husband kissed her after putting the dinner dishes in the sink, and retired upstairs to watch some television before bed, while she worked on into the night.

 

A few hours later, after hunching over paper after paper, she decided a nice, warm shower was the perfect way to unwind before bed.  She quietly entered their master suite, so she wouldn’t wake up her husband, got her things and went into the bathroom.  She turned the water on hot and let it warm up while she lit a candle and turned off the lights.  Soon, the hot water was raining down on her neck, relieving some of the tension that had built up over the day.

 

Then, she heard the softest little scratching coming from behind the wall.  At first, she ignored it, figuring it was really just the sound of the water.  It happened again, though, and again, and her mind started racing.  It didn’t sound at all like the house settling, or water through the pipes.  It wasn’t a mechanical sound.

 

She managed to keep her mind from wandering too much down the paths of old remembered horror movies, and she managed to keep from shouting out to wake up her husband.  It soon occurred to her that they probably just had a raccoon in the crawlspace, and she would have to do something about it tomorrow.  She’d send off an email to Allstate Animal Control first thing.  The only thing she’d have to decide is whether or not to tell her husband before his morning shower . . .

 

 

Raccoons

Raccoon Control

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I knew I had a raccoon control problem, but it wasn’t until I actually witnessed my cat versus the raccoon that I finally decided to do something about it.

My house has felt pretty empty since my husband passed away three years ago.  My children all live out of state with their families, and although they all visit at least once a year, I miss them terribly.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not one of those old fogies that sits around in her house all day, dusting a dustless house and watching reruns of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote”.  I’m on a bowling team, I volunteer at an elementary school teaching children how to read, I swim laps every day, and I run the neighborhood watch program.  As busy as I am, there are times when the house seems pretty empty.  So, I have become somewhat of a cliché, the old woman with a house full of cats.  Okay, it’s only two cats, but, still.

My cats are both indoor and outdoor cats.  I let them spend a few hours outside each day and then call them in at night.  Their food bowls are outside on my back deck, and I enjoy watching them play and hunt and climb.  A few weeks ago, I started noticing that their food bowls got empty faster than normal.  Instead of refilling their food dishes once every couple of days, I was replenishing their food supply twice a day.  At first, I thought we had feral cats in the neighborhood that were taking advantage of free food.  Then, I realized I had a raccoon control problem.

Raccoons carry all kinds of diseases that can infect my cats, so I was really worried.  Then, one day, in broad daylight, I saw a raccoon on my deck, about three feet from one of my cats and her food dish.  I was sure it was a rabid raccoon, and called a raccoon control service immediately.  But, after watching it interact with my cat, I realized it probably wasn’t rabid, it was just hungry.

My cat would jab and bat its head anytime the raccoon got near its food dish, but the raccoon just dodged the blows and scooped up tiny handfuls.  It would then retreat back down a couple of steps, eat the cat food, and go back for more, dodging even more cat jabs.  If it was rabid, it would have attacked my cat, but instead it avoided the swipes my cat took at its head and helped itself to the cat food.  No wonder I was buying more cat food than normal these days.  I was feeding at least one raccoon in addition to my two pets, and there were probably more raccoons that came under cover of darkness.

So, when the man arrived from the raccoon control company, I told him what was going on and let him trap the raccoon.  He even set out a couple of other traps, in case there were more in the area.  While I was fairly certain my cats weren’t going to get rabies, I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t get roundworm or any of the other nasty diseases raccoons carry.  Now, I could go off to bowling practice reassured that my cats would be much safer now that I’d handled the raccoon control problem.

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Pest Control – Raccoons

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Pest control ain’t just for little critters like roaches and ants.  Pest control is for any pest, including the coons that keep stealing my food, and I’m not too sure my old bones can handle it.  I usually sit up in my cat tree, overseeing the household affairs and making sure all is well during the night.  I’m an old cat, but I still make sure my house stays nice and safe through the dark hours.  In all my years, I’ve done my job well and handled a lot of the pest control around here.  I keep the mouse population under control, I’ve scared off more than one rat in my time, and I keep the property pretty much free of voles and gophers.  But, when pest control includes getting rid of raccoons, I have to draw the line.

The people I live with keep my dry food in a big bin, close by, so they can keep my bowl filled all the time.  It’s a nice, satisfying deal.  They give me a warm place to sleep and lots of food, and I handle the pest control.  But, one night, a little black paw came right through my cat door, followed by a black snuffling snout and black-rimmed eyes.  My food bin and cat tree sit right by the door, and I guess that raccoon decided to come right on in and steal it.  I’ve run up against a coon only once in my life, and it wasn’t pretty.  I still have the scars to prove it.  So, I was a little more than cautious when that critter came right through my very own cat door, bold as you please.  I slunk out of sight and watched the whole thing.  I’m great at rodent pest control and insect pest control, but raccoon pest control is best left to someone who knows what they’re doing, and won’t end up with bites, scratches or worse.

That raccoon came in and walked around my space, snuffling around the food mostly, but also taking a look up in my cat tree.  Good thing it was hungrier than anything else, so it pretty much just ignored me.  With those paws, it easily dragged the bin over to the cat door, and hopped back outside.  Sticking its head back through the plastic door, it easily popped that top right off the bin and dug in.  Now, I’ve been trying to do that for years, but I’ve never been able to get that tight lid off.  That raccoon made it look so easy, and I growled in jealousy as I watched.

Soon, it was joined by a second raccoon, and I wished raccoon pest control would show up right then and get rid of the raccoons.  Unfortunately, it was late at night and I was the only observer, so I was forced to just watch as the two of them devoured my food right in front of me.  They were too good to stick their snout right down into the bin.  No, they were too hoity-toity to do that.  They dipped their paws in and pulled out just enough to fill their mouths daintily.

To my delight, someone else in the house woke up.  I don’t know if they’d heard the noise or if it was just luck, but humans bumping around and turning on lights scared those two coons off.  I have no idea what they thought when they saw the bin in front of the door, lid off.  Hopefully, they’ll figure it out and get raccoon pest control out here soon.  I just want to go back to chasing mice and rats, sleeping in my cat tree and eating my food.  This old cat can’t handle much more than that, I’m afraid.

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County Raccoon Removal

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I watch these silly videos online or on TV where naïve people are oohing and aaaahing over how adorable raccoons are, and all I can think of is, they need raccoon removal immediately!  We had to have Salt Lake raccoon removal services out at our cabin this spring, and those “adorable” animals cost us a lot of money in property damage and personal property destruction.  I was just glad we could get a service to do Salt Lake raccoon removal for us, instead of trying to trap raccoons or remove raccoons on our own.  Cleaning up the mess they left was bad enough.

We’d packed up for a long weekend out at our small cabin, made the two hour drive and arrived there in enough time to set up the grill and cook up some steaks for our dinner.  We pulled up, and my husband immediately started preparing the outdoor grill, while I unloaded coolers and duffel bags from the back.  It was our normal routine, and we were very much looking forward to a relaxing weekend.  I walked up to the front door, got it open, took one step inside and gasped.  It was trashed.  My husband came running in after me, and we just stood there, stupidly gazing around at the damage.  At first, I thought someone had broken in to our tiny, two-room cabin, but I couldn’t think of any reason why they would.  There were bigger cabins down the road a ways, and we had absolutely nothing of value in there.  But, as I looked closer, I realized I was looking at damage done by a wild animal.  Several wild animals, probably.

Our mattress was shredded.  The cans of food we’d stored in the kitchen area were scattered all over the floor, cabinets wide open.  There was a cat-sized gaping hole where I could look right through the wall out to the trees outside.  Furnishings were gnawed on and scratched up.  We spotted raccoon droppings all over the floor.

I let out my breath.  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it ever since my initial reaction.  Words could not describe how angry and disappointed I felt, all at the same time.  “There goes the weekend,” my husband muttered angrily, mirroring my thoughts exactly.

As if that weren’t bad enough, a growl came from under the bed.  We high-tailed it out of there and got Salt Lake raccoon removal out to the property as fast as they could come.  They ended up removing a raccoon and three raccoon babies out from under the bed, and they even cleaned up the raccoon droppings and helped us temporarily seal up the gaping hole, with promises of full repair within the week.  We then set to work hauling out everything that was damaged or contaminated beyond repair, and making a list of items we needed to replace.  It was a long and disheartening weekend.

So, no, I don’t think raccoons are cute or adorable little rascals.  I think they’re mean, aggressive and very destructive.  You won’t catch me taking sweet little videos of raccoons and sharing them on the internet!

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Overpopulation of Raccoons

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Normally, our Home Owners Association meetings are kind of boring, but the turnout for last night was astounding, considering we were discussing the overpopulation of raccoons in our neighborhood.  Everyone had a story to tell.  Raccoons defecating in someone’s backyard pool and someone else’s koi pond.  Raccoons getting into crawlspaces and making noises that keep homeowners awake all night.  Raccoons crawling down into chimneys and having babies there.  Raccoons tearing through siding, roofing materials, and fascia to get into attics.  Raccoons blocking vents.  Raccoons chewing through wiring.  Raccoons stealing pet food.  Raccoons attacking pets.  The list went on and on.

After everyone had a chance to vent a little about all the raccoon damage their property had suffered, the discussion got a little dicey.  Some people wanted to blame neighbors for causing this sudden overpopulation of raccoons.  People got blamed for pet food left outside for their animals.  People were accused of deliberately planting nut trees and fruit trees, which attract the raccoons.  Other people were called out for not securing their garbage cans securely enough.  Still others were told their wood piles attracted mice and rats, which then attracted the raccoons.

The Home Owners Association leaders had a real problem on their hand as things quickly got out of control.  When people have to pay out a lot of money to repair the damage raccoons cause, or when their children’s health is at risk, or their beloved pets are threatened, they tend to get pretty upset.  One big guy was finally able to calm everyone down when he remarked that we were all to blame.  Fact is, raccoons are drawn to our neighborhoods for all those reasons and more, and we should stop trying to find someone to blame and start seeking a solution.  It did make sense, and people calmed down for the most part.  I think a few hotheads will still hold a grudge against some of last night’s attendees, though.

So, instead of tallying up the damage, the discussion turned to whether each individual household should handle their raccoon problem individually, or if the Homeowners Association should contact a professional wildlife removal company to handle the problem for the entire neighborhood.  Of course, everyone would have to pay for the cost one way or another, either directly to the wildlife removal company or to the homeowners association.  Discussion lasted another hour or so before the inevitable committee was formed to research cost and put together a couple of different proposals to be announced at the next meeting.

I personally would be interested to find out why we’re dealing with an overpopulation of raccoons all of a sudden, and whether it had to do with some natural factor outside of my neighbor’s activities.  But, I don’t want to risk anyone pointing the finger at me and trying to get me to cover the cost of removing raccoons out of their attic just because I spoke up.  Perhaps I’ll research it anyway, but keep the findings to myself.

Exterminator, Raccoons

Salt Lake County Exterminator

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raccoon traps too small

I was so happy we called a Salt Lake County exterminator to get the dead raccoon out of our chimney, especially after witnessing the horror show of its removal.

My wife and I saved up for years, and finally bought a beautiful vacation cabin near a beautiful, mountainous national park, and I had grandiose ideas of hiking nearly every day we spent in our cabin property.  Truthfully, we spend more time just sitting on the porch, looking out at the view, bird-watching, talking or sitting in silence together.  We enjoy living our dream.  And, I swear, my wife had more fun furnishing and decorating the cabin than our actual home!  We put a lot of effort into our vacation spot to make it a romantic getaway for us for some weekends, and a great place for the kids and their families to join us for holidays.

So you can imagine how awful it was to show up for a long weekend, walk in the door and get hit with a nasty smell.  I’ve never smelled anything like it, but it was rancid.  My wife couldn’t take it after a while and retreated to the car while I investigated.  As I searched for the source of the smell, she called a Salt Lake County Exterminator.  The cabin wasn’t really damaged, but I was certain that smell was going to be near to impossible to get out of the front room furniture, where the odor was the greatest.  Finally, it overpowered even me, so I sat in the car and waited for the Salt Lake County Exterminator to arrive, assuring her it would all be okay and we’d still be able to enjoy the weekend.

When the Salt Lake County Exterminator arrived, he walked right over to the fireplace in the front room, shined a flashlight up there, poked around a little, and said, “Yep, you’ve got a dead raccoon in the chimney.”  He explained that raccoons will often climb down the chimney from outside, most often to bear their young, but sometimes just to find a quiet place to die.

What followed soured the entire weekend for me, but made me grateful I hadn’t attempted to remove the raccoon myself.  The dead raccoon was so far into the decomposition process that he had to remove it in pieces.  Yes, pieces.  It was like a horror movie.  I was confused at the sound I kept hearing, as he worked.  It sounded like rain coming from the chimney.  When I realized what it was, I had to beat a hasty retreat out of the cabin, close on the heels of my wife.  Maggots rained down from the raccoon corpse down the Salt Lake County Exterminator’s head and arms as he removed the raccoon.

Needless to say, we did not spend the weekend there, but we were happy his services included cleaning and sanitizing our cabin.  We didn’t have to do anything other than finding a nice hotel room in the area, and planning our next weekend getaway.

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Raccoon Control

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I thought we just needed to get the water leak fixed, but I had no idea that would mean getting raccoon control specialists out to our house first.

I can’t believe we didn’t notice the wild animal living in our attic.  I suppose it went in and out while we were sleeping, or when the television was on, or when our family was just loudly playing games together or talking or fighting.  For whatever reason, we didn’t notice we needed raccoon control until after I noticed the water leak damage.

This spring, when it really started raining, I would sometimes hear the sound of water dripping in the middle of the night.  It drove me crazy, because I’d get up to investigate, but found nothing.  I stumbled around, in the dark house, fumbling from bathroom to bathroom and checking all the faucets and listening to the toilet, but never did find the source of the dripping noise.  Come to think of it, I would sometimes hear a rustling in the middle of the night, but I assumed it was our cat playing somewhere else in the house.  It must have been the raccoon.  I hate to think of that animal living in our home and all the nasty little bugs it brought in with it.

When the obnoxious dripping noise ended up as a slightly sagging ceiling in the upstairs hallway, we finally thought to investigate the attic area.  We grabbed a small ladder, pushed up the small piece of painted drywall separating our upstairs ceiling from the attic space, and my husband climbed on up.  He waited at the top of the ladder, the upper half of his body in the ceiling, to let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting conditions.  I handed him a flashlight, and he brought it up, clicked it on, and turned slightly.  Then, he gasped and told me there was a huge hole through which he could see sky, and that there was a raccoon growling at him from the other end of the attic.

Apparently, the raccoon decided to build a den out of the spring rain by tearing under some shingles, and ripping a wider hole around a pipe.  That left our house completely exposed to the raccoon’s activities, any other wild animal that cared to come in, and the weather.  We thought we’d have to get a raccoon control service as well as a roofer to come out, but it turns out that Allstate Animal Control does both – removes raccoons and repairs the damage they caused.  We had them clean out and sanitize our attic while they were at it.  What a mess.  I hate to admit it, but I was grateful we had a water leak so we could find out we needed raccoon control.

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Get Rid of Raccoons

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raccoon traps too small

Tears drip from my eyes, and I can not stop laughing as my roommate, Joe, stammers on about getting rid of raccoons.  The memory of his little-girl scream, the shocked look on his face, and the way he wind-milled back out of our fireplace makes me laugh harder every time I think about it.

“I’m serious, we have to get rid of the raccoon in our chimney!”

I know he’s serious, and I know we have to get rid of raccoons, but my laughing fit is making me hiccup out of control, and I can’t breathe, I’m convulsing so hard.  What makes it worse is our other roommate, Todd, is laughing, too.  I have to stop looking at him, or I’ll laugh myself into a coma.

Joe is kind of the macho man out of our group.  He’s the guy who spends at least two hours at the gym every day, bragging about his arms, even though most of the time is spent texting his girlfriend, drinking water, or looking in the mirror in between a couple of sets of grunting and lifting.  Hey, I don’t make fun of him, because neither Todd nor I can handle tools other than the occasional hammer or wrench, so it’s up to Joe to fix our toilet, install the new dishwasher, and, as of tonight, investigate whatever was making that noise up in our chimney.

We heard it at the end of our weekly game night.  We all have different gaming consoles, and we hook them all up in our living room, so we can rotate from game to game, trying to beat each other’s scores.  Some of our other friends were invited, too, but only on the condition they brought chips and drinks.  The raccoon in the chimney must have been making noise for a while, but we didn’t hear it until most of the guys had gone home.  Joe and Todd were picking up some of the empty cans while I finished up a game, and we heard a little scratch and a kind of chittering sound come out of our fireplace.

I didn’t bother to stop the game, until we heard it again, and Joe told me to shut up the game or he’d turn it off for me.  The three of us sat there, staring at the fireplace, waiting for the noise again.  When we heard it, a little rustling sound, we jumped up and ran around doing random things.  Todd ran for the phone.  He was going to call 9-1-1 until we yelled at him to stop dialing and hang up.  It couldn’t be that serious.  I grabbed a broom from the kitchen, although I’m still not quite sure what I planned on doing with it.  Joe ran for the fireplace, and banged on a spot just over the mantle.  He says he was trying to scare whatever it was, so it’d run back out and get out of the chimney.

None of that worked, and when we heard a noise again, Joe decided he was going to grab a flashlight and have a look for himself.

Flashlight in hand, he pulled the grate back, got on his back, and squirmed his way back into the unused fireplace.  At first, he didn’t see anything, but we sure knew when he did.   Raccoon eyes gleamed down at him from the dark, paws outstretched, and Joe screamed a scream that would have made a six year-old girl proud.  He’s still babbling about “getting rid of raccoons,” and Todd and I are still laughing hysterically.

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Raccoon Control

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Mama Raccoon says I don’t know anything about the world, but in my whole life of two weeks, I’ve learned a lot about raccoon control.

Mama loves to tell us the story of how she hunted high and low for the perfect place to have her perfect little babies.  My two sisters and I are, of course, perfect.  Before Mama had us, she walked through the forest.  She found a big log that was hollow and would protect her babies from the rain, and thought that maybe that would be the perfect place.  But, there was already a little family of skunks living in there, and she almost got sprayed by Mama Skunk, so she got out of there.  Then, she found an abandoned car with soft seats filled with wonderful fluffy stuff that she thought would be perfect to keep her little babies warm.  But, there was a nest of rats living in there already, and she didn’t want her babies to get bitten by nasty little rats, so she moved on.  Then, she found a little area under some stairs right next to a big bowl of cat food, and she thought it would be a good place to have her babies, because it would be so close to food.  But, some people tromped up and down those stairs all the time, and she was scared they would get raccoon control out there and take her away.

Finally, she crawled up and up onto a person house, and looked through a little crack in the roof above a porch.  It was indoors, so it would keep her babies safe from the rain.  It was filled with fluffy insulation, so it would keep her babies warm.  It was close to a woodpile just outside, under which lived delicious little mice.  And, no people went up there all the time, so she thought she would be safe from raccoon control.  It was perfect.

So, Mama made that little crack into a big, big hole so she could get up in the roof over the porch.  She is very strong, so she just pulled back the roof and tore into it until she could safely get inside.  Then, we came along, and Mama was very happy.  Sure, we stained the fluffy insulation, and sometimes we were noisier than we should have been, but mostly it was a perfect little life.

Until, one day, a man heard us moving around up in our perfect little home.  We heard some metal scraping on the concrete below, which turned out to be a ladder.  The man poked his hand up inside.  In his hand was a bright, bright light, and I wanted to get closer.  Mama picked me up in her hands and held me close to her, and she pushed my sister and brother back behind her.  Then, she went up to sniff and growl at the light.  It went away really quickly, and we thought we were safe.  But, a few hours later, raccoon control showed up and we were taken out of our perfect place one by one.  Mama says she’ll find us another perfect place for us where we won’t bother people anymore.