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

paulfish4570 said:
keith, our possums are not cute.

and welcome back, leigh!
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True. And our opossums can be vicious. My dog was going through a lot of food. One night she alerted me to something in the tree next to the house. An opossum. Another night, I came home, and caught the sucker in the act of eating the dog food.

I tried to move it with a broom and went under a chair and hissed at me.

And coons are tough. Multiple shots with a .22 rifle (not by me), a beating with a wooden boat paddle, and an attempt at drowning did not dispatch one. Talk about a will to live. 🙂
 
Glad you caught the racoon. Cute critters, but they can be nasty to deal with. We've had a bad problem with skunks this year, and had traps set. Between our next door neighbor and us, we caught four in the space of 10 days. Another has moved back into the area from the smell of it, so the trapper will be out again soon.
 
A bear walked in to my girlfriend's apartment one spring, sat in her bed & ate the peeps out of her easter basket. Sort of goldilocks in reverse. Hope things have worked out ok with your raccoon & that it was only one. Also, adorable shot...
 
I don't know about New York, but in Connecticut the pest control guys tell me they cannot relocate any Raccoons to property other than the owners, so they have to put them down. We had one trapped two years ago - it took up residence in our chimney- and were a little sad that she met that fate.

Also, I wouldn't count on cutting tress to solve the problem - they can easily climb the corner of your house, or porch, or garage, etc.
 
dogberryjr said:
Take your Christmas lights down!! 😉
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thats freakin' funny!

my inlaws had one in their attic...then it disappeared...then an oily spot showed up on the wall...then the sheetrock began to bulge...then the sheetrock began to smell, in the bulgy spot...then something exploded, mildly, and a lot of hair and gooey stuff was dripping out of the sheetrock where something had crawled in the wall and died...a raccoon! Good Luck.

Todd
 
A loud radio will drive them out.

Local contractor told me after he repaired his garage roof 3 times.

I had the tree trimmers remove all the racoon ladders the first owner planted too close to the house.
 
We've had Squirrels, Rabbits, Raccoons, Opossums, Coyotes, Rats & Gophers in our backyard at one time or another...the only ones trying to stay and nest are the Gophers...caught another one the other day...recycled him into coyote food...
 
Had a co-worker once who decided to help out a neighbor who had a groundhog nesting under the house. Took his pistol, and went on patrol one day. Got off a good shot, but didn't kill the bugger. It headed straight for it's burrow, where it soon expired. Let's just say he wasn't on speaking terms with the neighbor for a long while.

I was living in an apartment in the center of town, and a squirrel got in the attic. I informed the landlord, who being the cheapskate that he was, got some drunken maintenance man to get rid of it. He threw a bunch of poison in the attic, then patched over the entrance hole. For such a small animal, it sure made a big smell. I should have asked for double my deposit back when I moved out (luckily, I was at the end of the lease, but had to put up with the smell for a month). It was five months after I moved out before he was able to rent the place out again.

One night, I was at a girlfriends place out in the country, and she was talking about how beneficial her bats were, with all the mosquitos they ate. I asked her where the bat houses were, and she said they lived in the rafters of the house. So I sat on the deck after sundown, and counted at least 75 of the flying bug catchers emerging for their nightly feeding. Who knows how many dead ones were up there.

Then in this place, I had woodborer bees on the balcony. I just waited till the evening, and blasted one of the nest openings with some killer spray, and they came tumbling out of the other hole. One of them tried backing out, never making it completely, dying right in the entrance.

Animals think we exist to provide them with living space.

PF
 
I almost always have a camera with me when I bicycle. I'm nowhere near as fast or nimble as I once was, but I do still try to log some decent mileage.

About a year ago I was riding on a road not far from the central downtown of the county seat where I live (Morristown, NJ), when I happened upon a bear that I'm guessing weighed at least 300 pounds walking out into the middle of the road from someone's driveway (guessing he'd been feasting on some trash).

He stopped. I stopped. I eyed him. He eyed me.

I am 100% certain I was more scared of him than he was of me, BUT he did saunter back into the driveway. Fortunate for me, as both directions were steep uphill climbs. I thought I would crap my pants.

I was NOT quick enough to pull my camera from the bag! No pictures.

Perhaps this explains why most of my wild animal shots are taken of dead, rather than live critters. Simply a bit of survival instinct from a kid who grew up in the city and the suburbs and who probably doesn't know any better.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.

UPDATE:

So yesterday morning, the wildlife guy took mama away in her cage (and I felt so bad for her) -- if you didn't read my reply above, we did catch her late Friday night. After he put mama in his truck, he proceeded to have his assistant go up in my attic briefly to try to find the babies. Unfortunately, we have the blown type of insulation, so they couldn't find them.

He told me I'd have to wait to hear them cry, then he'd come back and retrieve them... (apparently this is the normal way to go about this kind of thing). I was not happy.

So last night we hear moving around near the pull-down stairs to our attic. We stand and listen for a bit and are SURE we hear them. We call the raccoon man. He proceeds to tell me he won't come until we clean the boxes out of our attic. Nice. Now I'm angry, and upset and it's 9:30 at night. My husband is not going up there with raccoons (he's generally afraid of any animal). I'm crying and call the guy back and basically beg him to come, and he gives me a hard time about it. He then brings his teenage daughter and makes her climb around my attic. Charming. She finds nothing, but she is sure she hears them whining somewhere.

This morning I go back in there and stand by the door for a while. I listen and hear shuffling again. The sound seems to be moving around a small area by the pull-down door. I'm looking at the door and listening for like 10 minutes when a little raccoon paw comes through the edge of the door (there's a small hole there). I jumped back (stunned)! I swear I wish I had my camera at that moment ready to take a photo because until my daughter's friend saw the same thing 1/2 an hour later, no one believed me.

I call the raccoon man. He basically accuses me of lying about seeing a paw. He tells me to go pick up his daughter and she'll get them. Not happy about that, but we do it (his daughter was VERY nice). By the time we get back, he pulls in not 5 minutes later. They go up in the attic and find nothing. He's annoyed.

And he then proceeds to tell me I'm "crying wolf". I could have punched him.

My husband is ready to have me committed because of how this bothers me. I've cried about the babies being up there alone. I don't want them dying up there! Dying also isn't going to make it any easier to find them (until they smell, which will be awful for everyone). I can't believe how difficult this is.

I've called another wildlife guy (who I originally called because he also does restoration, which he is going to do for me when this is all done). He's been very nice. I've filled him in on what is going on, and he's a little annoyed at my current guy's demeanor. He's going to come by tomorrow and take a look for me, to see if he can find where they are. He also told me to go outside and listen by the soffits, which we are going to do in a little while.

I need for all of this to be over.
 
when we had roof rats, the pest guy said to get wolf urine at the sporting goods store. really. apparently, humans can't smell it, but rodents (and civets, presumably) can. it comes in a little plastic bottle and you squeeze it up in the attic. it's used for deer hunting, i think. anyway, it worked pretty well.
 
Throw that (first) animal guy to the wolves. He is not the solution to your problems. His daughter might be, but not him !

If it was my place, I would get (buy?) 3 traps (how many babies do racoons have) and trap them and then call a nice animal guy or your local veteranarian (I can't spell, you noticed) or wildlife sanctuary or zoo ! ! about what to do.

If you are going to eat or use the dead animal, or if it's a real threat . . . then kill it. If you're going to kill it only because it's an annoyance, Sh#t, most of the people I know are an annoyance !
 
I remember living in a renter several years ago that had a problem with native rodents that evaded all attempts at trapping (they were protected) and baiting wasn't an option. Eventually a large carpet python moved in for a few days and disposed of the lot of them for me! 😛
 
Amy--the mothball theory isn't a myth!
Squirrels and opossums and the like detest the smell.
After you get rid of the opossum--aka possum--spread mothballs throughout your attic.
It does work..
Paul in Ga where we get 'em too!
 
UPDATE: 1 BABY CAUGHT!

Okay, I'm seriously going to start thinking that it's good luck for me to post here about this!! LOL

We heard the noise again. My brother and husband carefully opened the attic door, and my brother went up there to try to spot the baby/ies. He did. So I called the raccoon "expert" right away.

It took him nearly 40 minutes to get here (though I admit, it is a sunday night)... and my brother kept his eye on the baby raccoon he could see the whole time.

And the raccoon man got him! (then handed it off to my brother so he could see if there were more...)

We didn't see or hear any others, but we will have to keep an ear out... usually there is 3 or 4. Sometimes if there is only one, they do keep very quiet, which could be why we didn't hear any loud crying. I'm going to hope there was only one, but we'll be listening out...

Here's my brother!

jdraccoon.jpg
 
A few months ago I was awoken about 4AM. one Monday morning by something walking on our tiled roof. It must have been loud because my wife woke up in a start and said "Alby, there's someone on the roof" (normally she sleeps through anything.) We have two Jack Russells and they were growling. I leapt out of bed, let the dogs out who were soon yapping their heads off, grabbed a shovel and raced into the back yard. There sitting just above the gutters was a great big fat koala bear. My wife came out and said as only a woman would, "what are you going to do?" "I'm going back to bed. If he found his way up there, he can find his way down." Which is exactly what happenned. For about a half an hour I could hear him clunking around on the tiles then all went silent.
 
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