That’s quite interesting!
(My sister, who is also a renter, fell down some outside stairs on her property and face-planted, leading to about $5,000 in dental work over the next few months. It was all covered by her landlord’s liability insurance.)
I had a raccoon behaving pretty much like that out in my back yard and when Animal Control came out to fetch it they said it was very likely sick from distemper–apparently raccoons are very susceptible to it and live close by dogs so they get it pretty often. I felt bad for the raccoon but not bad enough to get anywhere near it. A friend had a raccoon kit she got as a pet and it was the nastiest, most vicious little fucker I’ve ever met so after that I refuse to get anywhere near the little bastards.
They will tear your house up. My aunt had a pet raccoon. Her house was a disaster zone for years. Nothing was safe.
My first thought was “some assembly required”. Needed a double-take to remember "kit"s are baby critters of certain species.
I knew a guy who ran a racoon rescue out of his rural home. Ref Beck, they had the run of some barns and covered porches, but never in the house.
Not tame; not tameable. They’re like goats, AKA pure mischief but with opposable thumbs and way more brains.
Yep. Around here farmers go to great lengths to keep raccoons away from their barns and yards. Little bastards know exactly when the sweet corn is two days away from being ready to pick and they will decimate your garden.
Tragically in the Orlando area the 6 yo nephew of a friend died from rabies after it scratched him. His dad found an injured bat that he put in a bucket but the boy was curious about it and it scratched him. Though they washed the wound they neglected taking the boy for medical care. One week later he was showing symptoms and died. I think right after it happened they scared their son about getting shots and he got super upset about it so left it alone. Major mistake stupid parenting.
There is a reason why in the classic true stories of raccoons as pets like Rascal and Frosty: A Raccoon to Remember (both of which I read as a wee tyke), the folks involved released their pets back to the wild after said raccoons got out of adolescence. Like a lot of wild animals they can be sweet and cuddly when young, if still a handful. But once the hormones start flowing they can also be moody and ornery. An ornery raccoon, even if it is only occasionally ornery, is nothing you want around you.
Yes or if not available a dispatch to local cops as was our recent experience. Summer campers found an emaciated sick looking deer in camp. DNR conservation officers NA, but a county cop took the call and put it down. But then the body needed hiding so the two suspects took an unmarked vehicle and dumped the evidence away from camp.
I haz no guns.
My county pays for it if the exposed person can’t.
They’re not happy about that; but they do it. The potential alternative to people not being able to get the shots isn’t something anybody wants to think about – it isn’t just that person, it’s everybody they might expose before diagnosis.
I know this because years ago, I had a farm intern, and a dog. The dog went into a hole under where the old barn fell down after a raccoon; we could hear fighting noises. I told the intern to stand there and if/when one of them came out to come get me and tell me which one came out, while I went to the house to call for help (this was before cell phones were common, neither of us had one.) Instead of following instructions, she went after them – into seriously unsafe footing that she’d been warned to stay out of when she first got here, and towards a fight in which one fighter might be rabid – and pulled the dog out, getting probably-mixed saliva on herself in the process.
The county was very annoyed at me because they had to pay for her rabies shots; they seemed to think that I’d told her to go get the dog. I said I didn’t tell her to do that, I told her to watch and come tell me if one of them came back out! In retrospect, I think that under stress I hadn’t thought to tell her not to touch any creature that did come out; but I do think it was clear that she wasn’t supposed to go in after them.
(The dog was fine; I can’t remember whether there were minor wounds, but if so they were minor. She was up to date on her rabies shots, and only needed a booster. We never found the raccoon; I don’t know whether it got away from her or whether she killed it.)
At one point we had a whole family of raccoons living in this gigantic fir tree on the neighbor’s property and I found out something I never knew–when raccoons fight they sound just like pigs. No shit, they squeal and snort like cartoon hogs and it’s really disconcerting to hear pig noises coming from fifty feet up a tree. They were up there making all kinds of racket and I came out with the garden hose to break it up–neighbor’s son (who did three tours in Iraq with the Marines and who took NO shit) was out there as well but turns out he was carrying a .45 and was about ready to fix their little red wagon for good. I talked him out of it and the hose did the job lol. Fuckin’ tree pigs, dayum.
News alert: they smell like pigs too.
I remember that story! It’s unusual for rabies to show up just a week after exposure - it usually takes weeks or even months - but when I heard about them not taking the boy to get a rabies shot because he was scared, that’s when the story became familiar.
Considering that a baby animal of any species still needs some “assembly”, you’re not totally off the mark.
Several years ago, I thought I saw a puppy curled up under a bush near my place, and upon closer inspection, it was indeed a raccoon kit. Before that, I worked with a husband who, along with his brothers, hunted raccoons and sold the pelts. When she told me that, I replied, “And then you probably had a BBQ!” She said, “We don’t like the meat, and we don’t know anyone else who does, so it gets wasted. We feed it to our dogs.” To which I said, “That’s not wasteful.”
Update: IDK what happened, but I meant to say “I worked with a woman whose husband…” Maybe my cat jumped on the table right as I hit reply.