I have a fat, ornery raccoon on my property. It used to knock over my garbage bins at night.
Then it started knocking over my garbage bins during the day.
Then it started eating sesame seeds out of my bird feeder.
It is completely unafraid of me. It doesn’t even startle when I go outside and yell. I threw some rocks at it tonight; it skittered out of the way, waited in the woods till I went inside, then went back to the bird feeder.
I’m thinking I’ll try throwing an egg at it, next. I know that that will be giving it a free egg, but if I’m lucky I’ll actually hit it, and its fur will get slimy.
What can I do to make this thing a’feared of me? It’s illegal to discharge firearms in my city. But… a paintball gun, maybe?
I have, at various time, used air rifles and laser pointers in the face at night to great effect. Their face, not mine (though that’s pretty scary, too).
As it is, it regularly knocks over my trash can and drags out the contents. Yeah, I know–get a locking garbage can. Yeah, well, the cans come with the house, which is a rental, and I’ve bugged my landlord enough about serious stuff. And like Colibri says–the way things are going, the raccoon is going to complain to the landlord and get me kicked out.
The Super Soaker sounds like a good idea, and definitely no possibility of illegality. On the other hand, I thought of paintballs because they hurt.
Remove the food sources. Lock down the trash and do something about the bird food. I don’t know how well the bird feeders that close when something heavy tries to get in work with big raccoons.
Get rid of the racoon. Killing it or trapping and relocating.
If you go option 2 you will need to get rid of the next one and the next after that so really your only long term option is to remove the food.
I grew up on a farm, and we raised several raccoons (Mama Coon would get hit by a car, and Babies weren’t old enough to survive without some intervention), and I can tell you that rabies can be a concern (although to my understanding, it’s fairly rare–DO NOT TAKE that as an excuse to be lax, though. Barring one potential case that I read of a few years ago, rabies is uniformly fatal. Do NOT take chances, please–spoken as a recipient of the 21-injection series of the remedy). Of course, if you have properly vaccinated your pets, there isn’t an issue.
Also, if you don’t want this 'coon getting into your stuff, it’s up to you to prevent that or (not a remedy that I recommend) shoot the 'coon.
They are smart (this is not a stereotype/urban legend) and persistent. You may be able to make a sort of peace/truce with them, but not probably exclusively on your terms.
On the other hand, of all the animals I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with growing up, raccoons were probably the most fascinating.
Right. gazpacho and **Dijon Warlock ** have given soberingly practical advice. I guess it’s curtains for the birdfeeder (boo. hoo.) and instead of a super soaker, I’ll buy some bungee cords to hold the trash cans shut.
New fun experiment: will the raccoon be strong enough to take off the bungees?
Imasquare: like **Dijon Warlock ** said, raccoons are soberingly intelligent creatures. I guess we don’t mind when animals are both smart and tame; smart and wild, though, can be a nasty combination. This particular raccoon, for instance, ran away from me exactly once. He stopped politely ambling away when I made noise, after two experiences with no consequences. I feel that it wouldn’t be much longer before he’d feel completely comfortable with threatening me–if that was in his nature–unless I show him who’s boss.
But gazopacho is practical and correct. Take away the food.
Try this – the next time you seem him, bare your teeth at him and snarl. Maybe put your hands up high and make threatening gestures. I once had a whole gang of raccoons on my deck, and on an impulse, bared my teeth at them. They skedaddled pretty quick.
Racoons have pretty sharp claws that are also very articulate. They are also persistent, so they might just chew through the bungees. I’d suggest some cabling, which will be much harder to chew through, or maybe a couple of bicycle locks hooked together.
I don’t know exactly what the rules of your area are, but you could try poisoning the food, too.
Around here (central NC) rabies is so common among raccoons that any raccoon is presumed to be infected. The Health Department doesn’t even test for it anymore. vetbridge is right. Kill it or trap it.
I was on a call once where some racoons made their way into an apartment. Trashed it like Keith Moon in a hotel room. They came in through the ceiling. They got out by pulling an air conditioner out of the window. I doubt a bungee will be much help. BTW it case you are wondering we knew it was racoons because they left one of their kids behind, he wasn’t big enough to get up to the window.