Smoking out raccoons

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have at least one family of coons living under my deck.

I am hiring a guy to dig a trench and then to put in heavy duty galvanized wire fencing to seal up the underside of the deck. But before he does that, I want to smoke the coons out.

I’ve thought about getting a couple of insecticide bombs and tossing them under the deck, but that might be a bit traumatic for the other creatures who live there - insects, arachnids, etc.

So, that´s what I´m looking for - ideas of what to use to smoke them out.

All suggestions welcomed here - even wise ass ones.

2

IANA drug user, but your subject line cracked me up. I had a mental image of a slacker-looking college student collapsed on a couch surrounded by a bunch of cute, cuddly raccoons, all passing around a big fat blunt, watching Cartoon Network, empty pizza boxes and bags of chips strewn around the room. Raccoons have opposing thumbs, so they’d be able to hold the blunt when it came to them, too!

“Smoking out raccoons” indeed! :smiley:

3

I used a couple of bug bombs to get rid of some skunks that were under a house that I worked on recently. You say they’re under a deck? Maybe I’m missing something. Here a deck usually means wooden floor, off the ground a foot or two (often more) with three sides open, maybe even a roof. Is there some reason they are not easily run out with a waterhose?
Other options that I’ve used to rid crawlspaces of pesky critters include pepperspray, mothballs, water, smoke, noise, ultrasonic devices, cans of red and/or black pepper, Raid type bug sprays, various types of traps and a few others.

Good luck :slight_smile:

4

Yes, the deck´s open on three sides and a foot or so off the ground.

Never thought of hosing them out. Good idea. :slight_smile:

5

You’re welcome…when you do this. Make sure there aren’t any children or pets that might get entangled with the varmints as they flee. I’m sure you probably would have done this anyway but better safe than sorry. Take care t-k

6

You may want to reconsider pissing a family of raccoons off. Those guys can be quite nasty when threatened.

Instead, how about live trapping and relocating them?

In the two states I’ve lived in the Fish and Wildlife centre had free use of live traps for just that very reason.

I found baiting the traps with fresh shellfish worked the best.

7

Then again you could possibly call animal control if you’re worried about it that much. I’m just an old country boy with a bit more compassion than most of my neigbors. They’d just the kill the racoons and be done with it. I’ve been around wild creatures alot and have a good respect for them but haven’t had any attack me yet.
If they were cornered and unable to flee…then you’ve got a problem. Back off and try something else.
I assumed there were some woods nearby, therefore once you get them running that’s where they’d go. It’s just a few raccoons right? I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

8

Can I say as a foreigner who has never had to deal with (or even see) a racoon, You big old meannie! They are soooo cute.

See, I know nothing I just think they are pretty. As an aside though, why are they such a pest?

9

Yeah, I know they look cute in the nature films and all, but when you actually have to deal with them they can be quite a pain. For one thing, they are notorious carriers of rabies. Just a couple of weeks ago in a neighborhood about 4 miles from where I live a (suspected) rabid racoon attacked a woman and her dog. Animal control wasn’t able to find the racoon, so the woman has to undergo a (reputedly painful) series of shots. The dog was vaccinated, so he got off with a booster shot.

Another problem with them is that they scrounge around at night in the garbage bags we leave out for the morning collection, and often rip open the bags and scatter the garbage about.

Still, all in all I’d rather deal with racoons than skunks. You’ve still got the two problems mentioned above with the skunks, plus the bonus aggravation associated with their penchant for spraying the dogs with nasty skunk-juice.

10

Live traps are probably your best bet. Racoons can be very stubborn and/or agressive when cornered, and you may never get them out. Or when you do, you might not want to be anywhere in the vicinity.

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Partial quotes

Seven

You may want to reconsider pissing a family of raccoons off. Those guys can be quite nasty when threatened.

Instead, how about live trapping and relocating them?

Here in CT it’s illegal to trap and relocate furry creatures. The threat of spreading rabies is the reason. I was told this by the local UCONN Animal/Agricultural office that deals with this stuff: “If you trap them, you have to kill ‘em,” she said. "We don’t care how you do it - drown ‘em, shoot ‘em, whatever. But don´t transport them to some other place.” I couldn´t believe how cold-blooded her tone was.

So, I might go ahead and trap the damn coons and shoot them.

By the way Seven, my son-in-law the outdoorsman, suggested I use cat food as
coon bait. (I assume he meant not the dry food, but the juicy, smelly stuff out of a can.) Have you ever tried it – as bait, that is? :slight_smile:

If it´s it just as effective as shell fish, having a couple of cans of cat food on hand might be more convenient than getting your hands on shell fish whenever you want to snare a coon. (Please take this in the spirit intended, Seven.)

t-keela

I assumed there were some woods nearby, therefore once you get them running that’s where they’d go. It’s just a few raccoons right? I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Yes we have woods nearby, and that´s where they originate from. But they´re more than a few (see above), and they´d just come right back. I might as well confess to what draws the raccoons to my house. Birdseed.

I have a couple of seed feeders and suet feeders hanging outside our den. Been doing this for several years now, and as a result we are visited by a wonderful variety of birds throughout the day. At night the raccoons come by to nibble on the seeds the birds push out of the feeders.

There have been times when I´ve counted 7 or more coons in the birds area… So I´ve got to get them under control.

WVmom

Live traps are probably your best bet. Racoons can be very stubborn and/or agressive when cornered, and you may never get them out. Or when you do, you might not want to be anywhere in the vicinity.

Yes, that seems to be the consensus, Mom.

Wish me luck, folks, and thank you all very much for your suggestions.

12

Get a Plumber’s smoke bomb, & chuck it in there.
They’ll leave.

13

HEY! HEY! HEY!

This is perfect!
Try these!

http://www.builderdepot.com/seo/ROXIDEINTERNATIONAL_BM/136787_61110_GOPHER_SMOKE_BOMB.ihtml

Safe, & non-toxic!

14

I checked out the site, and it says…

GOPHER SMOKE BOMB **Kills gopher, moles, rats, skunks, woodchucks Not poisonous, no secondary effect **
(Emphasis mine)

That´s a bigger miracle than pennicillin. :slight_smile:

15

All true. It creates smoke so dense it suffocates them.

Under your porch, they’d merely run like hell.

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Antiochus The problem you describe is fairly common here. Behind my house is several thousands of acres of woods with creeks and deer, wild hogs etc. Most of my neighbors have back decks on their houses that overlook the creek bottom running behind us. Many of them feed the raccoons either scraps or dogfood etc. I do a lot of remodeling and construction. Especially for my neighbors. One in particular was having the same problem you are. He had been feeding the birds and his cat and now the coons. They started hanging out under his deck too. I had worked out a deal with him to paint his house. I got a power washer to clean the place up with and while I was cleaning the deck the racoons decided to haul ass down into the woods. They didn’t try to come back as long as I was working around the place. I took some treated wooden lattice and cut to the proper height and using a rechageable drill scewed the panels into place. Thus keeping the racoons out. We then put a feed away from the house at the edge of the woods. The feeder is suspended on a cable from a tripod and is filled with dogfood. It’s painted in camoflauge so it’s not really noticeable and the racoons love it. They can climb on it but NOT get into it. The shaking of the feeder is what distributes the feed. They’ll play and eat and get full then go back into the woods.
I don’t want the little beggars around my place. I have a garden, a small dog (rat terrier) kids and a goldfish pond with NO fish because the SOB’s ate them all. I recently put up a motion light which will come on when they approach. It works on my neighbors cat too. So far I’ve not found any sign that they’ve returned.

17

Thank you, Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor.

I´m sure that´s the case, but I couldn´t resist poking a little fun. I guess that´s the Plumber´s Bomb you menioned earlier.

And SHAZAM back at our mutual friend, Billy Batson. :smiley:

18

…never mind.

Try this: Build an almost complete 4th wall on your deck.

Make friends with the little fellers. It’ll cost you a couple bags of cookies and take a month or so, but get them to the point where the whole family will come up on the porch with you and take the grub from your hand. Then one night, while they are all thus engaged, have someone sneak around and block off the entrance to their home. Bewildered, they will wander off into the night and build a large, hollowed out wooden badger–my no means should you bring this object into your home!

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Here’s a page about the good Captain. :slight_smile:

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By the way…