I know this story sounds crazy, but when I heard my husband called the police at 2 a.m. reporting a raccoon home invasion, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing either.  We have lived in Park City, Utah for about 15 years now, and I can assure you that we are very familiar with the wildlife that lives here.  I’ve seen everything from mice to moose in my backyard and raccoons are very common. We haven’t had too much trouble with them, as long as we keep our garbage can locked shut and don’t leave our dog’s food outside that is.  They mostly just scavenge for food around the neighborhood, never bothering anyone too much.  At least they didn’t until 4 nights ago.

Now I have heard some stories about people who have had raccoons get into their attics and homes and cause some serious damage, but when you hear those things you always tell yourself “it could never happen to me, right?”  I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but I considered my home animal-proof. I was so wrong. My dog Bruno ate some pork that day (thanks to my youngest son Bridger) and was having some terrible stomach problems, if you get what I’m hinting at.  Instead of risking the mess he could make while we slept, I left the cover off of the doggy door so he could move freely outside to do his business.  My other dog, Emma, is so old that she can barely see let alone hear, she is not fit for duty anymore, but I left her to watch the downstairs anyway.  Those were my first mistakes.  My second mistake was that I didn’t put away the leftovers after dinner, I never liked salmon on the second day and figured leaving it out would give me an excuse to toss it out the next morning.  Between the fish, bread, butter, and pasta left on the counter; the open entrance to my home; and my two watch dogs being out of commission I set myself up for the raccoon home invasion.

Taking advantage of the open doggy door, two raccoons snuck into my house while we slept and went rampant.  They tore into the bread, ate the leftover fish (which I’m not too upset about), broke into our pantry, tore apart the cushions on the bar stools, and last but certainly the worst, they somehow turned on the faucet.  Well after two hours of this mass destruction, Bruno finally lumbered back inside and let us know what was happening.  My husband snuck downstairs, .22 in hand, ready to face the intruders only to find raccoons! After chasing them out of the house, he called the only number he could think of, 911, and reported our raccoon home invasion.

After going through and replacing all of the water damaged laminate in our kitchen, salvaging what food we could, and replacing the rest, we found our savings being stretched and our patience growing thin.  Nobody could have prepared us for this, no one! Truthfully, I’m thankful that it wasn’t worse than it was, but I want to warn you! If you know there are raccoons in your area, doggy doors can be dangerous, especially if you have food sitting out.  You don’t want to end up like we did, the victims of a raccoon home invasion.