There’s a raccoon in my garage. Actually, four of them: a mother and three, hairless newborn babies.
Very cute, but raccoons nonetheless, and raccoons can be nasty, and thus a threat to both our dog and our cat, not to mention my daughter and myself.
It’s not much of a garage so to speak, just a rotting, ivy-covered shed with most of the roof missing, barely big enough to fit a Model T, and we don’t use it for much more than storing a ladder and a few yard tools. So the raccoons aren’t really in our way or anything, tucked into a corner of an aging loft I haven’t had the nerve to step foot on in years. But still, they’re there. For at least three days now.
I suggested calling animal control, but my daughter says no, as they’ll only kill them, and she’s not much into killing cute looking things.
What would you do?
Easy, get one of those humane animal traps.
Works like a champ, allows you to transport them to an area more suited for them.
I use mine all the time.
http://www.amazon.com/Humane-A.....B0006G5N64
PS: Some Feed and Tack stores rent them, too.
I have heard that raccoon crap has a worm in it that is toxic, so I probably would not want them camping out in a structure that I use at all. Plus, the aggressive little bastards will take on dogs and cats.
You can also try mothballs.
Seems like a bad time to trap them. Infant raccoons may not survive the trauma of being trapped and moved. Can you leave them alone until they’re big enough to move? Then either secure your garage or tear it down. Or just poison the suckers and to hell with being green.
Hey Goldy
Don’t mess with those little buggers. Can be very unfriendly.
Believe it or not, here is a link to helpful info from state gov’t!http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/raccoons.htm
We’re coon lovers. Several generations of raccoons have lived in the trees surrounding our yard over 20 years we’ve been here, and regularly visited the back deck to eat the cat food, sometimes as many as 10 at a time. They didn’t bother our cats, who lived outdoors, and we took to feeding them. (They eat dry cat food, won’t touch dog food, love eggs.) Occasionally, an exceptionally bold one would come into the house if we left the door open — we even shooed a couple out of the kitchen. Because we fed them, they trusted us. However, trying to pet them or pick them up is NOT recommended under any circumstances! If you don’t want them, you don’t really need to trap them, because they’ll all eventually get run over by cars.
#00 Buckshot.
Call PAWS up in Lynnwood, 425.412.4040. They should be able to help –
http://www.paws.org/wildlife-problem.html
@8 You must be a Republican. Fucking coon murderer! You should be stuffed and put on display in a Cabela’s.
@10…well then step right up tough guy.
GBS has the right advice, but you take his advice, you shouldn’t tell anyone. Wildlife belongs to the State and they don’t want you to mess with them. And your Daughter is right – if the government gets involved, they will kill the raccoons. I recommend that you follow GBS’s advice and don’t tell anyone what you did. Perhaps GBS or others will suggest a suitable place to release them.
Now, you COULD trap the raccoons, box them up, and ship them to Frank Blethen’s house, but that would be wrong.
There are a pair of raccoons in my Edmonds neighborhood, but I’m sure as hell not telling the authorities where they are. They seem to peacefully coexist with the neighborhood cats.
Brenda @12,
Or, I could just invite Frank over to my house and have him shoot ’em here.
My inclination is to let them be, and wait for them to move out once the babies are grown, especially now that my dog has tired at barking at them incessantly.
Place an ad on Craiglist under pets.
Charge $199 or best offer.
Leave them be and they’ll go away. Cats and coons get along OK. You’ll have to keep the dog under control as a racoon is a tough customer if cornered. I had some expereince with some human raised ones a neighbor rescued. They were a lot of fun but definitely needed to be in the wild. The babies are an absolute riot when they start playing with each other. GF has lots of racoons where she lives and they and the cats get along fine. They are often seen in close proximity with each other. Racoon poop does have issues. Check the interwebs.
Make like Kurt and kill it with fire.
@10:
And so should you, you crusty old bastard. That’s OK, you’ll be leaving soon….but not soon enough. Good riddance! :)
Let her at least rear the youngins until they don’t need to be where she has them now. I’m guessing that that is only several months. Then tear down the shed if you’d rather not repeat the experience.
Cool. A dumb fuck with attitude.
@19..vandalize any churches last night, Fujax?
Racoon Solution: The tazer! The tazer!
I’ve had raccoon mamas visit me for 3 or 4 years now, but I’ve never known where they nest. Unless they’re trapped or threatened (or sick) they can be entertaining. If you accidentally leave some animal chow out where you can see them, you can actually be quite entertained. My pal has even egged me into filling a large tub with water and floating unsalted peanuts in it. The babies, when they’re old enough to come on trips with their mom, LOVE to go fishing for nuts. One morning I had 13 raccoons (multiple moms with all their brood) peacefully co-exist in my back yard. The hard part is weaning them and having them return to nature by the end of summer. AND keeping them out of your house. Make sure your crawl space is intact and they don’t get in your attic. Otherwise, it’s a nice little view of nature. Just keep your pets in when they come out, mostly in the evening until morning. I have 3 outdoor cats and they’ve never been injured by a mother raccoon.
The mom will eventually take her kids back into the woods and away from people when they get old enough to fend for themselves with other adult raccoons.
And yes, if someone traps them, they will be destroyed and not re-released.
Call Animal Control and tell your daughter they went to a “farm”
@13 They’ll move out soon enough. Let them be. When they do leave, racoon-proof your garage. I did the same a couple years ago. Out here in the sticks they’re common enough and I tend to let them be. Coyotes are a different story, those filthy buggers.
Goldy,
You need to get rid of the raccoons, now. Raccoons carry the plague and rabies. And can transmit both to humans. And they do get along with cats just fine. If the food supply gets low they will just invite the cat over for dinner, as the main dish.
Also they are very smart. If you trap one of them and the others see it you will never get the others any where near the trap.
And they can fit through a hole the size of the end of a 2 by 4. They will invite themselves into your house.
My parents had a run in with a family of 5 raccoons (mother and 4 kits), they went through 24 chickens and 2 cats in less than 3 weeks. And the dog got bite up also. It took the use of a .22 to stop them. I know you can not safely use a .22 in the city, but you should call animal control.
@22 I have a couple of ponds out back and racoons show up every day. I don’t mind having them around.
@15 “a racoon is a tough customer if cornered”
True, although they can be prey as well. There was a very loud rucus just outside my house late one night about ten years ago. One of the critters sounded very, very big. I peeked outside the front door and a big racoon lay dead by one of the ponds. Just beyond in the bushes a couple of very large and wide spaced eyes were glowing back at me. Um, I decided to step back inside the house. In the morning there was absolutely no trace of the racoon.
If you live near a green space, and you don’t use that shed, just leave them alone. They will eventually leave. There are raccoons that visit my yard and neighborhood all of the time. There are dozens roaming around. It never occurred to me that the neighborhood needed to be scoured clean of wildlife.
Now eventually when the kits are older, the mother will take them around with her on her patrols for food. They are mostly nocturnal, but will be out in the early morning and evening. And if your dog is outside and chases the babies, the mother will come after the dog.
Trap the mother, quarantine her and get the babies. Do NOT handle the with your bare hands, use rubber gloves.
Transport them to a suitable habitat, release the babies first then release momma and leave.
Racoon proof your garage. Problem solved.
Really.
I am surprised that you didn’t claim those critters took refuge at your house in fear of Sarah Palin. Would have been a golden opportunity….
#14 FTW!
@29
Nah, but if they stick around we’re going to have Acorn get them registered to vote!
You might try waiting until the babies are big and then tearing down the shed. We’ve had raccoons in our neighborhood for about forever and they’ve rarely been a problem. Kinda fun to watch.
Back in the day, I lived outside of Spokane and had a family of skunks in my backyard. Never had a problem with those either.
http://www.hgtv.com/home-impro.....index.html
Because they are game animals regulated by the state, as has been amply discussed already, municipal animal control agencies will not touch them. To trap them (live traps only) you must have a state license. Even if it is only your intention to “relocate” them. But please do not “relocate” them to any of our city or county parks. They do not belong there.
And if you’d like to help reduce instances of problem pest animals in our cities, please stop feeding your pets outside. And if you can’t properly care for your fruit trees find someone else who will, or cut them down. Seattle Tilth can put you in touch with groups who will maintain and harvest your city tree fruit and donate it to food banks.
Ultimately, if you deprive them of food sources they will move away to build a nest in Stefan Sharkansky’s garage instead.
In a month or two they’ll be gone. Then you can clean out the shed.
The mom won’t like all the attention.
If you have to do something drastic, probably should go with PAWS. They will try to help you come up with asolution this side of death.
http://www.paws.org/wildlife-problem.html
Goldy,
As someone mentioned, you can use mothballs as an easy and inexpensive way to encourage the sow to find a new location for the nursery.
Assemble packs with about 5 moth balls wrapped in cheesecloth (use balls, not crystals). Throw the packs into the loft to cover the whole area, assuming a coverage of a seven foot radius around each pack.
The mothballs will sublimate over some period (perhaps a week or two?), so replace the packs a couple of times.
My brother-in-law in Memphis has had raccoon troubles over the years. He traps them then takes them over the stateline into Arkansas and lets them go. He claims his actions improve the collective IQs of both states.
Say, Darryl, would you mind leaving your Puddy Decoder Goggles where we can find them? We’ve been struggling to figure out just what that guy’s talking been about these past few days. Something to do with Kenya, Hitler and our being some kind of kommie-fascists, if that makes any sense.
Why don’t you trap them with a trapping cage and drive them out into the country and let them go?
Read “The King, the Mice, and the Cheese.”
Steve @ 35,
Decoding Puddy is simple. Just remember that Puddy is a character, and as a character, Puddy doesn’t necessarily reflect the underlying ideals, values, and morals of the person playing Puddy.
As a character, Puddy doesn’t need to be honest, rational, consistent, reasonable, or even ethical. Indeed, Puddy has admitted to lying, without much reason for doing so. The character Puddy can say anything without any type of internal conflict–because it is all make-believe.
Of course this is fundamentally dishonest because many people expect that they are dealing with a real person, not a character. So my advice is that you “decode” Puddy by assuming that your interaction is nothing more than a role-playing game where anything goes. Additionally, it would be useful to pass this warning on to other people who might be drawn into a conversation with Puddy, believing he is “on the level”.
Not to be repetitive, but if you trap even a nuisance game animal without a state permit to do so you will be in violation of state law.
The permit application materials may be downloaded here.
I house sat for an older couple about 25 years ago. Their house was in the country.
The place was infested with raccoons. I went to the local animal shelter and they loaned me a non lethal trap for a small deposit.
I must have caught between 20 and a 100 raccoons in six months. I would leave the trap until I saw whether kits came to the trap for their mother. If they had kits, I just released the trapped one. When I caught them a male or there were no kits, I would drive 10 or 15 miles into a National Forest and release them.
When the couple returned they asked what had happened to “their” raccoons. They had been feeding them for years.
HomeTaxidermy.com has great advice on making your own coon-skin hat.
Darryl @ 38
Thank you very much for your Puddy insights. I’m quite sure you are correct; nevertheless, now and again, I find myself trying to have discourse with Puddy. Such attempts invariably lead to a need for antacids and ibuprofen.
re 1: Ditto.
@11 Anytime, asshole. Make an appointment.
@44 Of course, this big-talking chickenwings never show up when they say they’re going to. Every wingnut who’s ever promised to meet me at Montlake Ale House has been a no-show. The score so far:
Roger Rabbit: 2
Wingnuts: 0
Wanna make it 3 in a row?
Chickenshits …
Roger – was wondering if you have any advice on penny stocks. Are they worthless? I’ve made $1000 return in two day so far.
@25 “Raccoons carry the plague and rabies. And can transmit both to humans.”
Right. You’re in almost as much danger of getting plague or rabies from urban raccoons as you are of getting killed by a nuclear attack launched from North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of raccoons have lived in Seattle over the years, and not a single case of plague or rabies has been reported.
Squirrels carry the plague too.
People get wigged out by raccoons. OMG!!! It’s a raccoon! ARGH!!! Those damned cute bandit eyed, cookie-eating…m o n s t e r s !
All mammals can carry rabies. The millions of stray cats turned out by Seattle residents are more of a threat than the raccoon.
I have heard you are suppose to spray wolf urine around and the will scare them away.
we’ve always had raccoon families living around the Graham Hill School area
let them stay till they move on mid-summer and then clean up
I live near a small lake and have a few resident raccoons who being their kits by every evening in summer & early fall. They are fun to watch – and if you keep the pets away from them, everyone should be alright. Leave her alone until her kits are old enough to venture out with her. By the end of summer, tear the old structure down – once they have moved on. It seems like the kind thing to do.
Just make sure that your pets will be safe. They are your higher priority.
I wouldn’t have a piece of shit building on my property because I’m not a lazy good for nothing liberal fuck. Maybe Obama will have an outbuilding restoration program for lazy fucks. God, I’d be embarrassed. You tards are missing some genes. This is funny as hell and just what I pictured Goldys yard would look like. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hey! I live out in the country…. is that where all my raccoons are coming from, you guys in the city?
Seriously though, you need to decide if you want to keep them or send them off to raccoon heaven… please don’t relocate.
Personally I have thought of killing them, but that’s usually in the middle in the night after they killed one of our chickens. Haven’t terminated any yet, but I have done research on the Department of Wildlife’s website. It is legal to shoot them.
… of course it’s legal to discharge a firearm where I live if your livestock or pets are threatened. I don’t think you have that luxury.
#49 Gordon.
Expensive stuff that wolf urine….not that it’s that rare….it’s the rare guy that gets it from a wolf. Ever tried to sneak up and catheterize a wolf without it noticing?
@52…maybe goldy can convince the racoons to relocate to the abandoned ’77 Ford LTD parked in his front yard…
Raccoons ripped out the screens on a friend’s foundation vents on her house. This allowed rats to get under the house and eventually IN the house. The exterminator sprayed coyote urine around the outside of the house and two days later she had a ginormous porcupine come visit for a day. Then the rats came back.
They might be in your shed this time, but could end up under your house next time. If you want to let them wander away, thats fine. But check your foundation vents and dryer vent to make sure they are still screened.
Try not to eat raccoon shit:
http://www.asktheexterminator......eces.shtml
@46 I don’t buy penny stocks. That market is rife with fraud.
@54 this is modern civilization it comes in a spray bottle.
http://www.predatorpee.com/
But I hear Palin just shoots them out of a plane rips out the bladders and tosses it in her “I ♥ hockey moms” to go cup.
First, there has not been a non-bat case of rabies in Washington State for at least 40 years. A non-problem. Plague? Bullshit. In New Mexico it shows up once in a while but mostly due to mice.
If your dog doesn’t attack the raccoons the raccoons will leave the dog alone. All the cases of raccoon attacks on dogs, locally, have been small, hyper, yappers who rush right up to the raccoon and bark in it’s face. Raccoon takes this as a threat and bites. As for cats, I have had my cats in close proximity to raccoons for the last 15 years without any problem. I did take my youngest cat in when there was a new mom with babies.
Enjoy the raccoons. It is a privilege to have wildlife in the city. More and more people are irrationally afraid of all wildlife, partly due to Eyewitless News going into panic mode over nothing.
The most dangerous animal in America is the family dog. Dogs kill more people each year than all other animals combined.
As for the whole “raccoon roundworms” scare: trapper trade magazines hype this as a way to drum up business, guys in moon-suits charging a lot of money. The disease is real but incredibly rare: 23 known human infections ever. And yes you have to eat the shit. And not all raccoons carry the parasite. I’ve tested fecal samples from local raccoons and they tested negative. BTW dogs can carry the same parasite.
Yours,
The Possum
Possum @60.
Thanks for adding more info.
Goldy,
Relax and enjoy the vibe. They’ll be gone before you know it.
And as someone said, they will get run over by cars…
I say squatter’s rights. Let them have at it. Just trying to find shelter in this big old crazy world.
And I agree with @60 Possum’s sentiment. We might of had a “wildlife problem” 50 years ago when people were feeding bears right out of the back of their Jalopy at yellowstone. But not anymore.
Just keep the trashcans and crawlspace (if applicable) secure. You might also want to consider a special door for your cat that only let’s the cat in and not the other animals. Basically an electronic collar switch that activates the door.
Other than that let nature live.
Raccoons are My people too.
On the other hand, I really hate Klingons.
you are a classic Seattle liberal; bound by the rules of political correctness; i think you have to embrace them as a native species, you are the intruder. back off and respect them.
Despite the stories of how nice the beasts can be, a raccoon killed our three cats. It entered our basement through the cat-door and killed all three – they likely objected to it entering their home. Do NOT let your cat get near them.
Goldy, I have the same problem in my garden shed. Because my sister had been feeding them for years, so they view the yard here as ‘friendly’. About the only thing to do is to wait until the kits are old enough (around the end of May), wait for them to move out, and then close up all of the openings that would allow them access. We will be putting strong wire up at that time to make sure we don’t have them denning again; in the meantime we’re going to put netting up over the garden beds to keep mom from walking through them.
Oh, and as for diseases? I’ve never heard of them carrying plague, but more commonly raccoon ringworm (which you don’t want to get, and which you can be exposed to by touching or breathing cells in the poop), canine distemper, and less often rabies, are carried by raccoons. If you do any cleaning up wear gloves and respirator and then wash your clothes; keep your dog up on his shots.
So is this shed in violation of the building codes? That’s the first thing we have to deal with. Why has everybody overlooked that issue?
@68,
Do you really need to ask that question?
@69 Can you reference the code? No, you can’t. That’s because you have no idea what you’re talking about.
#60 Possum,
Addendum to my earlier post about humam raised racoons. Neighbor and I were in front yard petting one of the aformentioned racoons (not advised with wild ones) and his scotty got jealous and came running out of back yard and went after the racoon (insert yap yap here). This racoon was maybe 9 months old but he sure educated that scotty. After the fur quit flying the scotty left the “battlefield” somewhat bloody but much more wise. All we could do was get out of the way.
How would you like to be goldy’s neighbor?
piece of shit falling down garage thats an eyesore in the neigborhood, grass probably isnt mowed, wildlife living on the property, probably garbage strewn everywhere…
nice!
..please goldy, stay in the rainer valley…
@70..steve, I can cite a code..
Good Neighbor Code, Section 100, part B: Thou shall keep the property in good order: Buildings in derelict condition shall not be allowed.
In other words, have some goddamn pride about your home and property and take care of it like a man.
Just wait a couple weeks for the baby critters to grow up, and seal off the shed when they are out roaming at night. If you decide to leave the shed as-is, you will be guaranteeing future racoon visitors.
I think your daughter is correct: animal control will likely eradicate your coons because there are simply so many of them.
Register them to vote as Democrats, Goldy. You’re gonna need ’em in November!
I would let them stay until the babies can fend for themselves, and then clean up the mess and do whatever it takes to close all possible entry points to the garage so this doesn’t happen again. You might be able to find some usable lumber in “free wood” scrap bins that exist here and there in Seattle.