While Scylla forges ahead in serious battle with evil Nazi groundhogs, I (or rather my parents) have a somewhat more mundane yet annoying animal problem.
How do you keep raccoons from using your garden as a latrine?
These are not neat little piles, mind you - it looks as though the damn things shed at least a tenth of their body weight at a time. They like to do their thing dispersed among the flowers that border my parents’ backyard, providing a unique and unappreciated contrast to the greenery.
My parents have asked everyone they can think of what do do; the only response they gotten is, “Gee that’s a tough one - wish I knew what to tell you.” In desperation my dad has tried squirrel repellant, but, well… it’s squirrel repellant.
I should add that these are urban raccoons, so they are utterly fearless and have quite an attitude. (Think Robert DeNiro: “You lookin’ at ME?”)
Does ANYONE know of a substance that would bother the raccoons so much that they wouldn’t want to go near the flowers, never mind take a dump in them?
I live in Raccoon City USA. There isn’t much you can do about them. I got a little frog thingy that makes a ribbet ribbet when someone walks in front of it. So far its kept the cats from coming inside. Dunno how Rocky would feel about it.
Why don’t you try getting one of those motion detector flood lights. That should scare 'em away.
When I was a young and reckless teen, sneaking out of the house and over to my GF’s house, there was a HUGE, ferocious raccoon that lived in her back yard. It used to hiss at me and terrorize me. If my quest hadn’t been so ahem “noble” I may have given up. This continued for a few months, until they got a dog. It was a friendly dog, but a bit bark-crazy. Needless to say, everyone in the neighborhood(except her parents for some reason) knew when I was geetin’ some.
Actually, my parents already have such a light by the front door. Every night between 8:30 and 9:00 the light goes on when one of the regulars marches across the front of the house on his way to the neighbors’ trash cans… and he simply ignores it.
I kid you not when I tell you that these animals are fearless. They’re like the bears at Yellowstone that invade people’s tents because they’ve gotten used to humans.
BTW, I’ve confronted a few on occasion by accident, and I’m the one who gets out of the way. Apart from the fact that these are big suckers (the largest I’ve seen must have been around 30 pounds) who will fight if cornered, there is a significant rabies problem among the raccoons of this area. Delightful, eh?
Don’t know if this applies across species, but when our neighbors had skunks under their stoop, my wife (with the help of her friends, and undoubtedly some wine) decided that the scent of human urine would keep them on the other side of the property line. So guess who the duty fell to? I’m not complaining. Gave me an excuse to drink beer and piss in my yard. Tho prepared, I never had to say, “Honest, occifer. Just scaring skunks.”
Hey, maybe that would qualify under “Things that sound dirty …”
