HELLO JI!
MASKED BANDITS HAVE INVADED MY YARD
“I am not too keen to encounter raccoons at such close quarters, so I go “Shoo! Shoo!” loudly.” Image credit: FROGGY5 on Unsplash.
A family of raccoons has made itself at home in our yard – two large ones, I’m guessing mama and papa – and four little ones that are rapidly growing into not-so-little ones.
The female brings her brood over to check out the offerings in our yard. Ever so often I turn around – alerted by a movement in my peripheral vision – and see them making their way across the beds, leaving flattened plants in their wake. I am not too keen to encounter raccoons at such close quarters, so I go “Shoo! Shoo!” loudly and wonder what anyone walking by on the path behind us will make of it because they obviously can’t see what I see!
These incursions might be tolerable, but they’ve taken to hanging out on the deck. They ramble up, play with each other, she nurses the little ones. The babies snuggle up to her and at one point I saw her doing what can only be described as a kiss on her child’s nose. Utterly sweet. Until it wasn’t. They took to cavorting in the pots, sniffing at a budding fig plant and at brahmakamal leaves. I clapped my hands and they tumbled off the pots, almost overturning them, so then I had to go and pull out all the water globes that I just leave in the pots year-round for when we need them if we’re going to be away. But they won’t last long if the pots are going to roll across the deck. Then I spotted one picking up a dried bhut jolokia (ghost pepper). So ran out to shoo it away. Because while I am busy plotting ways to get rid of them I can’t subject a baby to hot peppers, even a raccoon baby.
I sent clips of them to our sons and my brother and all responded with how cute they look. They are not the ones picking up poop.
The city’s animal control services said their mandate is to protect wildlife, not rid residential properties of pests! A private pest control company said it’s easier to work with raccoons that are actually in your home. For ones roaming around outside, they can only trap them and set them free far away, hoping they won’t make their way back. Their charges? Oh, just $300 for the first one they trap and $150 per subsequent raccoon. So for our little family, if they were to get them all, we’re looking at $1000! And the best part? There’s no guarantee that the ones they trap are in fact “ours”. As he said, any raccoon wandering by could be trapped, leaving ours free to roam. And poop.
So we are trying other remedies. Cans of something that promised to get rid of raccoons did nothing. We read that raccoons don’t like the smell of bleach, so that’s next. Bleach soaked rags on the deck, hoping that will deter them. Our son Tapas finds all this vastly amusing. “Next you’ll be looking for chloroform,” he said.
Yes, I know others have it worse – a family of bobcats in a Calgary home, a bear wandering into a Vancouver home and consuming the dog’s breakfast. Just that I wouldn’t mind our resident creatures all that much if they spread the love a little and visited our neighbours too! After all, Toronto even has a plaque honouring the humble raccoon.
Happy Canada Day!
Shagorika Easwar