I'm a bit Freaked Out (a little off topic)

I had a possum living up under the soffit of the house I live in ... it would arrive at dawn and crash around a few metres above my head until it settled down for a good days sleep before heading of again in the evening!

After trying everything to discourage it I hosed the area down one afternoon and made sure the gap up under the soffit got well and truly saturated. It never came back after that because one thing animals value is a dry place where they can sleep ... fish excepted! :p

Possums are also very cute!


possum03R.jpg
 
Nice shot Keith! These critters can really wreak havoc on a house and homeowner's peace, can't they!? I wish the hose trick could have worked in my attic... LOL

We'll be doing a LOT tomorrow to try to prevent this in the future. Geez, if I could afford it I'd cover the whole roof in metal! :D
 
Spiders can be nasty. We get the occasional big one in the house in the spring and fall. A friend of mine got bit on the foot by a brown recluse and he walked on a cane for weeks when he reacted pretty badly to it!
 
Good thing it was caught, the past 2 years we've been combating the Raccoon (assuming the same one) from making our attic their home here.

From nailing basically stainless steel into the areas where they got through the gutters, to playing loud music in the attic and all methods to give the mother a fair warning of, hey, this isn't the best place to raise children.

It seems to have worked, I recently saw the mother going into the sewer hole, instead of my attic.

So all in all, glad to hear the trapping has worked and the struggles won't be there. Just be sure to patch up all possible entrances and make as least desirable as possible to enter. IF they want in, they will get in!

Spiders are a different story of course, out of sight out of mind! unless it bites, then it's fair game.
 
Yeah, spiders you just have to step on to get rid of... (sorry spider-lovers! LOL)

It's funny because a lot of people I've mentioned this to are so surprised, and I'm like "look, if they want in, they'll get in!"... this sucker literally just chewed through the roof, for no good reason but she could get up there easily (and they climb the gutters, they don't even need trees!).

Needless to say we're going to start doing some raccoon proofing tomorrow and I've got a whole bunch of "experts" offering advice and assistance. We'll be trimming trees tomorrow too. Once the attic is clean I'll put mothballs up there (even if it is a myth). The raccoon guy is putting sheet metal at all the corners, and at the point where the "L" in our L-shaped ranch meets (she chewed through that too). I hear there are some kind of "spikes" you can put in your gutters too, to deter them. I'll be looking at those at Home Depot tomorrow. I DO NOT want this problem again.

Like I said, I'm not usually a baby about stuff, but this was literally causing me almost panic-attack level stress. I'll feel better tomorrow when the raccoon man carts this family away...

(and then I'll probably cry for feeling bad for them! LOL!!)
 
Michael Markey said:
Got me thinking ...how big are Raccoons ?
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From Wikipedia - "having a body length of 40 to 70 cm (16 to 28 in) and a body weight of 3.5 to 9 kg (8 to 20 lb). Raccoons are noted for their intelligence, with studies showing that they are able to remember the solution to tasks up to three years later". (I'm baaack!)

Barbed wire can be a good deterrent but it doesn't look all that pretty.
 
Thankfully we don't have coons in the UK but I did have a squirrel get into my loft and because it couldn't get out it ate all the christmas decorations. I found its dessicated body when I was checking out another pest, the dreadful wasp nest!
 
We had exactly the same situation 10 years ago. Raccoon mama ripped shingles off the roof at night and squeezed into the attic. Left a big hole. We trapped her and papa within a few days and they were released in the woods.

Not to mention the bat community that took over our previous attic :D

Or the chipmunks who came in through the dryer vent and set up home in our bathroom ceiling !
 
Don't raccoons taste like chicken?:rolleyes:

Yeah, I know, not PC.

We used to hunt them when growing up in the country. Never cooked one but had lots of rabbits, squirrels, quail, deer, etc.

Squirrels have become the number one pest around here for some reason but have only had a few possums visit. Talk about ugly!!!!:eek:
 
We had a neighbour poisoned a rat they had and it died where we couldn't get at it and the smell in both flats was (probably) a match for any skunk:)

They didn't tell us and when we went to ask about the smell (worried it might be a bigger corpse) we found out that the lady and children had gone to her mum's leaving the chap to bear with it!

Mike
 
raccoon meat is tough and greasy. but their fur sure is pretty. and a big boar 'coon will do major damage to most dogs that corner it before expiring. a big coon can drown a dog - even a big one - if cornered near a creek or lake.
 
burancap said:
Am I the only one that likes raccoons?
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I love pictures of them! But they ain't pets!:angel:

I used to like deer until I started hitting them with the car. In the past ten years, I have hit and killed more deer than I ever did when hunting them with a gun!:mad: Now everytime I see one on the road...good riddance.:p
 
i like coons - in the wild. they are smart and fun to watch - in the wild. think of a raccoon as a 20-pound rat, except cuter.
turkey hunters despise 'em because coons are such proficient turkey nest egg thieves, and eaters of new poults ...
 
Yikes. Based on the last two posts, I will admit to growing up in a veritable menagerie -so I am tainted.

Many fond memories of awaking with a raccoon and a grey fox as a child -just part of the family.
 
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